How do I love this movie? ... Let me count the ways: I can't remember how many times I have already given a review of this movie and yet every time I notice something new about this wonderful little and quiet Korean love story.
And no, I don't mean the US remake with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves that is being planned. This is the real deal.
It is a week before Christmas 1999, and Eun-Joo moves out of a house by the seaside called Il Mare (The Sea). She leaves a Christmas card in the old mailbox in front of the house to greet whoever will move next into the house. She also informs whoever tenant is next to forward important letters to her new address, what she doesn't know is that all correspondence in this special ancient mailbox is not delivered to a current tenant but to the original owner two years back.
( Cut for spoilers )I love this movie. The whole feeling of it is one of melancholy and yet warmth. The director Lee Hyun-Seung, uses the sparse sets (Il Mare is a very modern house and also furnished this way) and sparse landscape shots most of the times with a mist lense to show the melancholy of the season and yet with the soft pastel blues and magentas it gives a warmth that is hard to find in other movies. The whole cinematography is stunning, and together with the music (simple classic pianoforte) it draws you right in.
The only thing which is annoying sometimes are the really badly done subtitles in English. Most of the times the verbs are missing or in the wrong tenses. But apart from that, Il Mare is a stunning movie with a surprising end that leaves you elated after having watched it :)
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