Faces of Seoul (2009)

• 75%
• 2009
• Gina Kim

A documentary that is at once a city portrait of an Asian capital. It accounts the recent changes of Seoul from the perspectives of both a former local dweller with many intimate memories and an expatriate traveler whose knowledge of the city can neither be contemporary nor irrelevant. FACES OF SEOUL loops its audiences through the ever-changing modern metropolis, from the Seodaemun Prison to the blooming cherry blossoms in a verdant park, from a neighborhood occupied with American soldiers to a parade of Buddhists marching through the streets. In each of these spaces, Gina Kim explores the city she so fondly remembers, reconciling the reality of her memories with the reality right in front of her. By so doing, FACES OF SEOUL reveals Korea's capital as a dynamic place where these opposing concepts--language vs. image, tradition vs. modern, native knowledge vs. exotic encounter--rub against each other without yielding a single dominant perspective.