If you know you’ll never be the best, is it better to give up right there and then or to continue but out of simple enjoyment rather than ambition? For Seok-young, the second option doesn’t make any sense. It’s just a waste of time to pursue something that you have no aptitude for when there are those born with natural abilities that you could not hope to equal no matter how hard you tried. But as much as she claims quitting doesn’t make you a loser, there is something a little sad in the idea of abandoning something you once loved simply because other people were better at it than you were.
At 13 years old, Seok-young is a swimming obsessive and very proud of the fact that she recently won a trophy. One of the reasons she’s so upset she and her family are moving back to her mother’s hometown following her parents’ divorce is that she’ll have to leave her swimming club and is worried there either won’t be one in the rural backwater or that the other kids won’t be at her level. Unable to make headway at the pool, she goes swimming in the sea instead only to be struck by a foot cramp and rescued from drowning by sullen local boy Woo-joo. Though he angrily runs away from her and says he hates swimming, the two later bond over their shared love of the sport and outsider status. But Woo-joo turns out to be a prodigy and much better than Seok-young meaning that he’s soon picked up by a coach to train in Seoul and Seok-young quits swimming in a fit of pique.
There’s a gentle yet contradictory theme running through the film of allowing your fear of not being good enough to rob you of the joy of doing something just because you enjoyed it. Seok-young seems to quit a lot of things, and as a high schooler is left home alone when her sister too goes to Seoul to train as a concert pianist. She is diffident and aloof in her relationship with Woo-joo, never revealing her true feelings but pushing him away and needling him in his own insecurity as a backwards way of reassuring him that he has the talent to succeed. Meanwhile, he is carrying a secret that makes him doubt his talent and feel self-conscious in the pool, afraid to reveal himself and as it turns out with good reason. Only Seok-young knows and is completely unfazed by his difference, recognising it as the thing that makes him unique while stopping short of admitting that she does indeed think there’s something more to him than swimming and would like him even if never swam again.
Nevertheless, there’s something quite upsetting about the idea that Woo-joo would have to sacrifice what makes him unique not only to succeed but simply to be able to fit in. He lives with a sense of being different, and is perhaps also bullied and discriminated against because he’s being raised by his grandmother, something else which Seok-young just accepts without question. Seok-young, meanwhile, is displaced amid her parents divorce and humbled by the realisation that she may have overestimated her talent for swimming. She continues to vacillate and unlike those around her flounders for direction. Another boy who’s interested in her reveals that he kept going to the swimming club just for fun even after realising there was no way he could be as good as someone like Woo-joo, but Seok-young seems to retreat into herself in her insecurity. She’s afraid to keep going or try new things out of fear she won’t be good enough rather than simply doing her best and having a good time.
But as she says, quitting doesn’t make you a loser and giving up something that isn’t making you happy can be a victory in itself as she perhaps discovers in returning home less in defeat than in search of something more. Woo-joo too seems to have found his niche, now whole again and all of himself while no longer submitting to the pressure of needing to achieve something more for others than himself that had ruined whatever joy he may have found in swimming. The message of Ryu’s gentle drama is less one of knowing your limitations than avoiding letting the fear of failure prevent you from doing something you love or conversely walking away from something that isn’t working while finally gaining the courage to chase after what it is you really want.
Boy in the Pool screens as part of this year’s Cinema at Sea.
Trailer (English subtitles)
Windows on Worlds 