Canola

Chang's 2016 film is set on Jeju and measures the distance between two women. Gye-chun is a haenyeo, one of the island's traditional breath-hold divers. Her granddaughter Hye-ji, missing for twelve years, suddenly returns, and the two begin sharing a house again. The grandmother gives her whole day over to the girl, while the grown Hye-ji says almost nothing about herself, and suspicion builds in the village around that silence. The balance between Youn Yuh-jung and Kim Go-eun carries the film's weight. Chang treats the island's colour as deliberate material: the black of the basalt, the blue of the sea, the orange of the canola fields. The emotional effect comes less from the mystery resolving than from two people learning each other again. Who it's for: viewers who like the quiet end of Korean melodrama and stories about what two generations cannot say. Who it's not for: anyone waiting for a brisk mystery and clean answers; the film puts its weight elsewhere.