My mother’s death came suddenly in 2016. There was only about a month or so left to spend as a family. A miracle never happened, and death came and took away my mom’s final breath heartlessly. After that, I started to question death. What first started within me expanded into a bigger question about the death of human beings.

Most people pay attention to how they live rather than death. Death is probably not a human instinct. For instance, the Covid-19 virus also desperately replicated itself, searched for hosts, and kept making variants in order to survive. All living things must fiercely struggle to survive, and we humans are no exception.

I can still recall the day of my mom’s funeral. I was resenting fate for taking away the life of my innocent mom, and it felt as though the gods threw a difficult problem for me to solve. It felt like I was standing in front of a useless empty shell my mom left behind.

The more I questioned death, the answer I landed on was always life. Maybe I longed to understand the meaning behind living on. Unless a natural disaster strikes, trees can live for hundreds of years. In comparison, humans briefly come and go. During our time here, we burn our flames passionately like matches on fire, as if to exude the beauty and the ugly of what makes us human. As if we’re trying to forget death exists at all... Jéro Yun

Mrs.B., a North Korean Woman (2015), Beautiful Days (2018), FIGHTER (2020), Song Hae 1927 (2020)

From Death, From Life
The documentary Breath, which began with director Jéro Yun's autobiographical experience, deals with the end of human life, or in other words, death. In the film's first half, the director establishes through his narration that water, the element of all life originates, and fire, which turns all life into ash, symbolizes life and death. And in between them, there is an infinitely fragile child's gesture. The movement to stay alive. The breathing in and out. Breathing is the most fundamental act that separates life from death. The shock from the director's mother's sudden death, only a month after her cancer diagnosis, reminds the director of the past when he faced death in a big accident in his childhood that he can't remember. The scars left on the director's body are the traces of death and the vestiges of his earnest will toward life.

Just like there is a beginning and end to everything in this world, death is the most natural part of life. However, the instinctual will to live makes everything related to death taboo. The director follows the daily life of a funeral director and cleaning specialists who cleanse the homes of those who died alone, putting a microscope on what's left after death. Experiencing a sudden death ironically makes the viewer reflect on their current life. In contrast, the exploration of death showcases the director's belief in accepting death as an inescapable part of life's journey. Breath portrays in detail the funerary practices of wiping the body of the deceased and cremating the body in a way where the process of life and the moment of death are connected and exist by our side, and a funeral director and his partner's decision to discontinue to life-sustaining treatment when the time comes. The shift from pondering how one should live to how one should die. Breath is a film that asks the most challenging question faced by humankind: inevitable yet attempted reconciliation with our fearful fate of death. CHOI Eun

Young

Production Cinemaroad (babonoom@hanmail.net), Beansroad (jungyunjae77@naver.com)
Distributor Cinemaroad (babonoom@hanmail.net)