Stubborn Boy...

The Way Home (2002)

I enjoy watching the occasional movie, especially foreign films. Foreign films become, for me, a small window on the world from which I may glimpse far away places and snippets of lives that are lived differently than my own. At the same time, they always seem to contain universal life-truths with which we can all identify.

A Korean film, The Way Home, was my most recent selection from the local video store. I'm not sure exactly what attracted me to it, but I'm wonderfully pleased to have discovered this little gem.

It is the enchanting story of a very spoiled and stubborn young city boy who learns quite a lot about life and love during a stay with his elderly Grandmother in a remote mountain village. The Grandmother, who happens to be both deaf and mute, shows her grandson the true meaning of unconditional love...by example. She seems a near perfect model of patience, humility, and loving-kindness. The example she sets is one I wish I and the world would follow.

The performances were excellent. Many of the actors were locals, and the Grandmother, it is said, had never even seen a movie before acting in this one.

There are so many interesting issues in this movie that each person may take away from it something just a little different. One might reflect on the Grandmother's saintly example of love and how they might find the will and the way to mirror it in their own life. Or, perhaps one might think upon the many differences between the young and old, or between city life and rural life. Then again, maybe others will simply enjoy it as it is, a film which plays on harp-strings of emotion and paints beautifully picturesque mountainside scenes.

Bryan gives this film two thumbs way up! Apparently, so do a lot of other people!