“Everyone dies one day – and nobody knows how to prepare for death,” says an undertaker in Breath. Well, here’s how: with its relentlessly visceral depictions of the deceased and thoughtful ruminations on mortality and its discontents, Jéro Yun’s latest documentary is bound to raise questions aplenty about how we should confront our very own mortality. Through unnerving glimpses of the dying, the dead and their detritus, Yun invites viewers to consider embracing death as a predestined juncture in a finite human existence, rather than struggle against the dying light by all available means.
Inspired by Yun’s mother’s painful passing in 2016, Breath is seemingly a product of an emboldened and enlightened artist seeking some answers – for his traumatised self, and also for others – to questions about death and bereavement. While by no means gory, Breath remains a tough watch. By showing his mother’s final moments – an act which might be open to some moral debate — as well as unflinching depictions of corpse-cleansing, cremations and a worker scrubbing a floor clean of liquefied human remains, Yun is forcing the viewer to stare death in the face and challenge their own prejudices about the subject.
Funded by the Jeonju International Film Festival as part of its annual Jeonju Cinema Project initiative – in which the Korean festival provides a maximum grant of around 100 million Korean won (US$75,500) to each of three domestic and international feature-length projects selected by a specialist panel – Breath is sufficiently thought-provoking and taboo-bashing to attract further bookings after its world premiere at its benefactor festival in Korea. In fact, Breath would make an interesting double-bill with Song Hae 1927, Yun’s 2020 documentary in which a Korean TV host in his 90’s looks back on his evergreen career and his feelings about his longevity. (He died last year, four years after the passing of his wife.)
Breath begins with stunning widescreen shots of ebbing waves and fiery flames, backed by a soundtrack of aquatic whooshes and infernal flickers. Suddenly, the film cuts to a much lower-quality video of an ailing elderly woman panting heavily in her hospital bed. Yun’s solemn voiceover reveals the patient as his mother, struggling for breath during her last cancer-stricken month. The director returns to Madame Yun’s demise time and again throughout the documentary, both in illustrating the delirious state that precedes death (as shown in the heartbreaking recording of Yun’s mother’s garbled last words) and also a rational way of confronting it.
The counterpoint to Yun’s raw emotions is the voice of reason from funeral director You Jae-chul. A veteran undertaker and mortician, You is a thorough professional who has long steeled his will to treat death as just one quotidian process among many in life. Far from becoming a cynic, however, You and his wife learn from their work rather than merely earn a living from their death-dealing business. Their beliefs and philosophies of life are very much shaped by their line of work, as we hear the couple discussing the right way of living a good life and dying a good death, as they sign up for arrangements to make their wishes happen. Meanwhile, we see You treating his work routines with respect and diligence, as the remains of ordinary people and former presidents pass through his parlour.
Adding to the Yous’ voices is that of Lee Jong-rim, a “trauma cleaner” who cleans apartments left behind by people who lived and died alone, sometimes in the messiest and most miserable ways. Here, Yun follows Lee and his colleague to a small flat where a man’s remains were found more than two months after his passing. As Lee goes about finishing his thankless task – he scrubs the floor clean of the traces of decomposed human tissue, and combs through the clutter to find, among other things, an official medallion sanctioning the dead man’s scientific achievements – he muses about the tragedy that can befall even the greatest mortals.
With their matter-of-fact reflections about the living and the dead, the Yous and Lee rarely, if ever, succumb to sentimentality as they discuss perhaps the most sensitive aspect in human existence. But they also never come across as cold and disengaged, and it’s to Yun’s credit that he managed to tease so many morsels of sage wisdom from his ordinary subjects. While the ending seems somehow abrupt and rushed – a longer, feature-length version awaits, maybe? – Breath remains a vibrant piece that goes well beyond its seemingly morbid theme.
Director-cinematographer-editor: Jéro Yun
Screenwriters: Jéro Yun, Nam Hee-ryung
Producer: Lee Gi-nam
Executive producer: Jung Yung-jae
Music composer: Kim In-youn
Production companies: Beansword, Cinemaroad
World sales: Asian Shadows
Venue: Jeonju International Film Festival (Jeonju Cinema Project)
In Korean
64 minutes
