[Cine 21]

Published June 20, 2007

By Da-eun Nam

Director Gina Kim delves deeply into female desire. In Gina Kim’s Video Diary and Faces of Seoul, her central theme was surfacing and visualizing the repressed desires of women. Never Forever continues in that vein, but unlike her previous self-confessional works, this film more closely adheres to the conventions of a classic melodrama, gradually building dramatic tension. The romance between a white, middle-class married woman (Vera Farmiga) in an unstable home and a working-class Asian man (Ha Jung-woo) living in precarious conditions is, from the outset, enveloped by barriers that doom it to tragedy. While class and race are seeds of this tragic melodrama, the film doesn’t draw its narrative from the insurmountable social walls surrounding its characters. Instead, it focuses on the psychological shifts and uncontrollable desires of two people falling into an impossible love. Yet the film does not waver emotionally alongside the characters; it maintains a consistent, composed gaze. Even in emotionally heightened shots, the film cuts away coolly, choosing ellipsis and restraint over lengthy explanations. When portraying a character left alone, the camera simply gazes inward from outside a window—or outward from inside. Thus, while their love unfolds as a messy, painful romance shaped by harsh real-world conditions, the film gives weight to the woman’s active desire, neatly trimming away the messy excesses of reality. In the final scene, the woman’s subtle smile as she looks toward the camera—as if gazing into “eternity” in the distance—becomes a portrait of a woman marked by the crashing waves of passionate longing.