Director: Yang Yun-ho (1999)
White Valentine tells the love story of two lonely people in a small town. A pet shop owner (Park Shin-yang) moved into this small down in reminiscence of his love whom he lost in a car accident. Everyday he writes a letter and sends it off in a white pigeon, hoping that one day his love will reply from the sky above. On the other side of the town, a 20 year old girl who have been writing letters to the same guy while he was in the military, chanced upon this very white pigeon at her window. Slowly, they conversed through the white pigeon, pouring their soul to that anonymous person and awaits by the window for a reply. Eventually, the love story did not develop like the usual love story. It is a slow-paced, tender and sad piece of film where each character's sorrow is portrayed through their actions or poetic form of dialogue.
The white pigeon was their link and salvation from solidarity, yet they never realised how close they were and how often they met. The settings and characters in this film had a common trait, that is, all of them are lonely in one or another way. In this small town, life is peaceful but somehow I felt that it is too peaceful. The girl lost her parents when she was young. The pet shop owner lost his love in a car accident when he was young. She lived with her grandfather who eventually passed away in later part of the film. There was so much pain in the character's heart but non of it is shown on their faces.
The film is set in a small town with beautiful scenery where one can just stare at the sunset and watch autumn leaves fall. Yet from the character's expressions, there is a lot of thoughts going through his/her mind. Yang Yun-ho uses a medium or long shots to express how lonely the characters were. At the same time, he always uses the same camera angle at certain scenes to draw a relation to the point that he wants to bring across, that is, their loneliness. In the long shot of the male protagonist in the story being half drunk and talking to himself, he blurts out and sings his sorrow of how he yearned for his loved one to come back. The same camera angle in his room was used from the time where he walks into his room at night, till the next morning where he wakes up to a hangover. Similarly, in the last two long shots of the film, the camera is set at the same angle and each characters move on and off-screen.
In the film, Yang has the tendency to film his characters in big open spaces such as the park, or the street. The camera is often far away from the protagonists. The use of big spaces in this film is to show that kind of loneliness and solidarity this film has. There is so much space and a beautiful scenery, yet more often than not, there is only one person who is in the middle of the screen, walking, drawing, looking and thinking.
On the side note, I love the song that was played and supposedly the male protagonist's favorite song. I guess it is a song that calm's our soul and allows us to quietly listen to it. Sang by Linda Eder who played Lisa in Jekyll and Hyde musical.
Magical.
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