My Love, Don’t Cross That River, an independently produced
documentary released late last month in South Korea, has recently attracted more than three million viewers and counting, considered to be an unprecedented number for a local documentary.
The film features 98-year-old Grandpa Jo Byung Man and
89-year-old Grandma Kang Gye Yeol[seen above in images from the studio promotional packet] a couple that has been together for 76
years; while highlighting their love for one another, the film explores themes of true love itself, explaining the mass appeal that has prompted so many to flock to theaters across the country.
The couple lives in a mountain village in Gangwon Province, South Korea, and were
married when Jo Byung Man was a 23-year-old pony-tailed bachelor and Kang Gye
Yeol was a 14-year-old young girl. Although 76 years has passed since then, the couple still engages in childish antics, inciting snowball fights or throwing leaves from freshly raked piles at one another.
Despite Jo’s debilitating health, he dotes on his wife, placing flowers in her hair and telling her how beautiful she is. In one the movie’s most salient scenes, he reaches out to stroke her cheek as she sleeps– a moment of pure intimacy caught by the filmmaker’s cameras.
My Love is a documentary with which people of every generation
can identify because the narrative hinges on a couple facing what everyone eventually must: death. The beauty of the film lies in the dignity they both demonstrate as they prepare for their inevitable separation.
“He never leaves me, and even sings me songs so I don’t
get scared,” Kang says in the film, referring to when her husband walks her to the outhouse late at night, tightly clasping her hand and waiting outside to guide her back home afterward.
The deep affection and bond between the couple is palpable in even the most trivial of their daily activities and chores. While taking in this old couple’s profound love, this author recalled struggles from her homeland and those encountering them every day still–just trying to get by.
Culturally, North Korea is still very much a patriarchal society. Even more so than in the South, it is rare to see expressions of love between couples, but this is not to suggest that families like this are absent; it is quite the contrary, in fact.
“My mother and father had a lot of affection for each other.
People in our village used to say that they were ‘love birds’ and that they
were well-suited for each other,” Oh Jung Hee (40) who defected from North
Korea and used to live in North Pyongan recalls. “Even though we lived a
difficult life, Father always prepared an elaborate celebration for Mother’s birthday, and
Mother always looked after Father’s health.”
After 2000, women began to play the most active roles in the economy–slowly chipping away at patriarchal culture’s strong grip over North Korean society. Currently, there are far more husbands who help with the housework now that their wives have become the breadwinners. Many of these men taking on more complex endeavors like preparing for birthday celebrations, anniversaries, and other events previously the exclusive responsibility of women. Moreover, a significant number of defectors report that North Korean couples encouraging and showing affection while alone continues to rise as new notions of relationships and love enter and are woven into the fabric of society.
Another defector, Kang Mi Yeon, verified these sentiments and commented on recent references made in lecture pamphlets distributed among the Chosun Democratic Women’s Union. “[In these booklets] they
speak of ‘revolutionizing the family’, but they also talk about ‘love bird couples.’ We’ve found out that there are so many loving couples in families across
North Korea. There is a cost to giving ‘presents’ or ‘showing appreciation’
towards Kim Jong Eun’s family, but there is no cost involved when you’re showing
love to your significant other,” she asserted.
North Korea mandates that love for the Marshal [Kim Jong Eun] is the greatest of all adoration, but My Love, despite its portrayal of a South Korean couple, in actuality, depicts the earnest love shared by plenty of couples just above the border. The underdeveloped media culture, compounded by the characteristic rhetoric of state propaganda, render North Korean media absent of traces of this love– and the world outside perpetually cut off and unaware of it.
