NYFF. Secret Sunshine.

"More of a constant stream than a succession of wildly unpredictable events, Secret Sunshine [site] mimics something of the rhythm and fluctuation of real life - long lulls are punctuated by tiny repetitions or occasional, unforeseen swerves - such that even a cursory description of the film launches one right back into the gentle but insistent torrent of its narrative." Leo Goldsmith at Not Coming to a Theater Near You.

"Secret Sunshine ends on a note at once ambiguous and hopeful," writes Dennis Lim in a piece or the New York Times in which he talks with director Lee Chang-dong about the role of Christianity in the film, whose "limpid, humble approach to suffering and grace suggests something like Breaking the Waves stripped of mysticism, or a rationalist version of The Pilgrim's Progress."

Updated through 10/15.

"Although religious faith only plays a part in Lee Chang-dong's new film—his first after a tenure as South Korean Minister of Culture after making 2002's excellent Oasis - one has to be impressed by the way he and actress Jeon Do-yeon approach one of the hardest possible things to express in cinema - conversion," writes Daniel Kasman. "They do it not through some remarkable conceit or technical expression, but rather they provide perhaps the most vital of all interpretive aspects - context."

"Teeming with incident, full of emotions, roiling with anger, Secret Sunshine is nevertheless something like a blank canvas," writes Michael Koresky at Reverse Shot. "Director Lee Chang-dong's protracted yet endlessly involving tale of grief and regeneration is a classically tailored assemblage of small, clipped moments, prizing human behavior but also acknowledging it as remote and difficult to define."

"I loved this movie," writes Tom Hall in a quick review he warns is full of spoilers. "Shin-ae is one of the most difficult characters in this year's festival because of the singularity of her emotions, but at the same time, the monotony of grief and its consequences may never have been more precisely examined."

"Secret Sunshine belongs to actress Jeon Do-yeon, who gives a wonderfully evocative performance that deserves to be seen and celebrated as widely as possible," writes Jürgen Fauth.

Earlier: Reviews and previews from Toronto and NYFF, and the first round of reviews from Cannes.

Update, 10/15: "[T]he best thing about Secret Sunshine is that it found the right director," writes Tim Wong in a review for the Lumière Reader that contains what some might consider a spoiler. "As Korean filmmakers persist with high-pitched, bloodthirsty stylisations of retribution, the key is not to overlook the quieter touchstones that emerge from their national cinema every year."

Posted by dwhudson at October 14, 2007 1:58 PM