Psychoanalytic Comment on Lee Chang-Dong's Film ã€ˆSecret Sunshineã€‰

Lee, Byung Wook

Abstract

Lee Chang-Dong's film ã€ˆSecret Sunshineã€‰ made a sensation in Korea for a while, because it deals with very sensitive religious issues of crime and revenge, salvation and repentance, forgiveness and etc. After losing her husband, a young widow Shin-Ae with her only son relocates to a small-town called Milyang for a new start. That place was her husband's old hometown. But one day her son was suddenly kidnapped and murdered by a familiar neighbor. When tragedy struck, one local man Jong-Chan stood by her through all of her struggles and tried to encourage her. But she was driven to despair, and then had religious help from the church. Furthermore she was persuaded to forgive a murderer in prison. When she met him in prison for the sake of forgiveness, he announced to her that he already was forgiven by God, and he looked very happy and overwhelmed with joyful blessed mind. She was shocked to his comment, and fell down. Just after meeting, she was suddenly changed to a defiant attitude toward Christianity, and began to act-out her revengeful mind. As a result she was admitted to psychiatric hospital, and after discharge she returned to her home with cool mind, but Jong-Chan tried to protect and support her endlessly. He was indeed real secret sunshine to her. This story is very painful and impressive because it is not a story about the others, but ourselves. We can simply diagnose her condition as posttraumatic stress disorder, but do we have really helpful means for her? Indeed we have to admit that there is no single or simple resolution. Above all things, she requires well-timed mourning process, and her self-understanding and self-acceptance just before undeserved forgiveness. Her main defense mechanisms are very primitive and immature, those are denial, projection, splitting, projective identification, primitive idealization, rationalization, acting-out and etc. Besides she reveals many hidden minor faults that were indirectly induced to her son's death, those are as-if quality, lie, self-conceit, vanity and etc. Moreover she was not aware that her religious faith was shallow, and then she had not yet qualified for the forgiveness. After all impatient and forced religious intervention without proper therapeutic approach and mourning process resulted in more aggravated conditions. She needs for a safety zone, persistent concerns and care-taking, empathic understanding and sharing in here and now, and proper self-understandings.