Glass Garden Review (Korean Film)

I often find that even when a work misses it’s mark, or the mark I believe it to be going for at the very least, the fact that it has a target to aim for, a clear vision that it is trying to achieve, is enough to allow me to see it’s redeeming qualities beneath it’s breadth of mistakes and missed opportunities. You can see the moments where it shines and just as many if not more moments where it falters fatally while clashing with itself. 

You feel yourself cheering the work on, hoping that it meets its defined and central goals of quality. Almost as if they were your favorite athletic team in a close game with precious few seconds left, only to have that sinking feeling set in when you realize they’ve made a critical mistake their margin for error shrinking, hope waining, and ultimately the painful realization that there is no way back while at the same time finding space in that grief and disappointment to be appreciative of the effort it took to get there. 

Glass Garden is a film whose intentions are pure and worthy of recognition, but it’s legginess often gets in the way of the story it’s trying to tell, the ideas it wants to convey and the heart it wants to believe in. Director and writer Shin Su-won deserves credit for clearly making the film she wanted to make. However its lack of necessary clarifications, all too leisurely pace, and an overly confusing magical realist/romantic tone are at the heart of its undoing from an artistic standpoint. It’s the quintessential “I can see that a good film is in here somewhere” but it is ultimately not what was realized.

PHD student Jae-yeon is a researcher full of pride and knowledge. She has an enigmatic ability to communicate with the natural world around her, in particular that of autotrophic plant life. Her physical disability keeps her from realizing her full physical potential and after being used and betrayed by her colleague and former lover she decides that she has had enough of academic city life and retreats into the forest to live along amongst her more comfortable plant brethren. In contrast a novelist Ji-hun is trying to win back his reputation as a writer after being blacklisted for criticizing a powerful and wealthy contemporary. Puzzled by his neighbor Jae-yeon’s recent disappearance, he takes it upon himself to track her down and turn her self-imposed exile from society into a novel to win back his own reputation.

The naturalistic lighting, cinematography and color palette of green vegetation perfectly establish the tone of arboreal fair contrasted with the city life of grey and blue to that of Seoul, which we often find ourselves switching back and forth between. It communicates the dichotomy between the divide of profiteering, corporate science and science for the good of our species. A beautiful subtle touch that, to me, comes across as extremely smart and intentional. You feel the difference in location as much as you can physically see the difference between the lush green forests and the concrete jungle of the city.

Characterization is, for the most part, is used at times smartly not just through the spoken word but within the characters actions. It goes without saying that is how it should be. However it is the contextualization of character and framing of each that came across as a bit on the strange side. While the film undoubtedly WANTS us to empathize with these people and what they were going through, I actually ended up finding each of its main players to be somewhat loathsome. Not an inherently bad thing of course. But when so much is stuffed into a narrative whose pacing feels all too stationary far too often, I wondered why it worked against itself and it’s strengths as often as it did. Character motivations start to fall apart upon further inspection the deeper into the woods we go, both metaphorically and literally.

It tries to cram in so many themes. Such as criticisms of Korean beauty standards having places in meritocratic places like scientific research, objective truths being stamped out by the rich and powerful, not only does it not have anything meaningful to say about these ideas but it completely drops any notion of them in the latter two-thirds of the film. Its final act completely derailing any chance the film has of redeeming its previous indiscretions as it loses its marbles completely in more ways than one. We can feel the push and pull between the clash of science for the public good, of making the world a better place, and enriching the wealthy elite who see science only as a selfish means to an end. And we can see it trickling its way down from the macro collective level to the micro individual level. But we’re not convinced of it even if we can tangibly feel its presence being made.

It attempts to function as a reminder of the dangers of unchecked dogmatic devotion, devoid of rationality and personal inventory. When we have the ability to make the necessary reflections on whether or not something is justifiable and worthwhile to satisfy something beyond ones own morbid curiosities or spiting another just to prove them wrong. When opening that box of selfish, petty indulgence it may not even be in our own best interests when tinkering with powerful forces we cannot completely control. Whether or not it is an effective message however is up for debate considering this work’s constant undermining of its potential through its own stubbornly slow pacing and lack of cohesive vision.

Glass Garden is ultimately a film that, while never living up to it’s potential, does offer glimpses of it’s artistic merit and creative muse, and while it’s a shame that it never comes together as well as it’s participants would have hoped, it’s hard to argue that it has no heart or soul, in fact there is no way you would find me making that argument. It’s heart and soul are very evident in moments throughout its runtime, even if its quality left me wanting a whole lot more.