“How can being yourself be your weakness?” asks a young woman who, more than anything else, is defiantly herself, to a young man who indeed is anything but. The heroes of E.oni’s Love in the Big City (대도시의 사랑법, Daedosiui sarangbeop), adapted from the acclaimed novel by Park Sang-young, are in some ways on parallel journeys that somehow weave through and around each other as they each try to navigate an often hostile society that has no place either of them.
For aspiring writer and in the film’s early stretches student of French literature Heung-soo (Noh Sang-hyun), his “weakness” is that he’s gay and though he seems to have accepted this about himself is firmly in the closet. Free spirited Jae-hee (Kim Go-eun) who spent her teenage years abroad in France catches him making out with their professor but couldn’t care less though Heung-soo rebuffs her attempts at friendship fearing they’re akin to a kind of blackmail or that she plans to out him to their fellow students. It’s not until Jae-hee is publicly shamed when it’s rumoured a topless photo being shared online is of her that the pair finally become friends. Sick of the curious stares and covert giggles, she lifts her shirt in front of the class to prove it isn’t her, earning the nickname “crazy bitch”.
Her response is the exact opposite of Heung-soo. She claims her freedom by baring all, being defiantly herself and outwardly at least little caring for what others think of her while Heung-soo makes himself invisible and says nothing harbouring intense fear of being exposed. They are each in their way pariahs. Heung-soo because of his sexuality which is still unacceptable to many in the fiercely conformist society of South Korea in which Christian religious bodies still have huge influence and loudly oppose LGBTQ+ rights and freedoms. Heung-soo’s widowed mother is also intensely religious and having stumbled on one of his stories about a crush on a classmate is aware that he is gay but does not speak of it and continues to believe he will be “cured”. This is perhaps why she keeps urging him to do his military service believing it will make a man out of him.
For all of these reasons, it’s not surprising that Heung-soo is unwilling to live his life openly as a gay man because of the prejudice he knows he will face from those around him. Jae-hee, by contrast, refuses to hide and lives the way she wants to but is shamed by those who feel a woman should live in a certain way which is to say quietly, politely, and obediently. A man she thought was a boyfriend while he thought of her as a bit on the side publicly slut shames her and asks what sort of idiot would want to date a woman like her. Though we first meet her as a confident, rebellious student we see her gradually beaten down by the world around her and the demands of corporate culture. Considering marrying a man she may not actually like because it’s what you do, she stares sadly at a middle-aged woman opposite her on the train dressed in a near identical outfit and the comfortable shoes that are psychologically at least uncomfortable for Jae-hee in representing her capitulation to the properness of mainstream society.
Her degradation continues to the extent that she finds herself in a relationship with a domineering, intensely patriarchal man who later turns violent when she tries to leave him. E often cross cuts and juxtaposes Heung-soo’s and Jae-hee’s experiences as they each suffer similar blows and indeed violence from a macho society if in different ways and for different reasons while having only their intense bond as fellow outsiders to rely on. This really is the love in the big city, a deeply felt platonic and unconditional love between two people who essentially have no one else. It’s through this love that each comes to love and accept themselves, Heung-soo eventually gaining the courage to fully embrace his authentic self while Jae-hee finally regains her independent spirit and refuses to let others shame her while standing up both for the LGBTQ+ community and the young woman she once was at the mercy of a male-dominated corporate culture. Warm and often funny, the film paints contemporary Seoul as an outwardly oppressive city of enforced conformity but equally discovers small pockets of freedom and joy along with the wholesome comfort of true friendship and self-acceptance.
Love in the Big City screened as part of this year’s London Korean Film Festival.
International trailer (English subtitles)
Windows on Worlds 