Life
Inho Jeong <Once a week, for an hour and a half, from the steep slope to the gentle side>, Béla Tarr <The Turin Horse>
Gilinbong
©
Wanglackyeol
‘Once a week, for an hour and a half, from the steep slope to the gentle side’ is an invisible pattern that continues regardless of my location changes. My father created this routine. Every weekend we go to Gilinbong Peak, starting from steep paths and descending to the reservoir. There was one instance when my brother and I ran away behind my father's back. Yet, as we unexpectedly bumped into him in the alley, we were inevitably return to the mountain. This ritual became ingrained in me and shaped my preferences for where to live, looking for a place with an accessible mountain.
Béla Tarr
andAgnes Hranitzky,
The Turin
Horse, Hungary, Cirko
Film, 2011
©
Cirko Film
In The Turin Horse, the main characters, father and daughter, eat potatoes, and in other scenes they eat potatoes again. They eat them raw in the face of extinguished fires. Despite the gradual decline depicted throughout the movie, the father tells the daughter to keep eating potatoes. Throughout the 2 hour 26 minute film, the camera angles capture repeated actions from different perspectives. The portrayal of the characters' behavior seems to revolve around aimless survival without clear purpose or meaning. I felt a profound sense of emptiness.
I understand that Tarr is transcending emptiness by creating films around the theme of nothingness. By turning these actions into art, he transforms nothingness into something. I am unsure of the purpose behind my father's hiking routine, but I understand that this hiking is the same as eating potatoes. It is for life. Similar to how
Béla Tarr created the movie, my father created someone who can repeat his hiking routine.