My Love, Don't Cross That River

Jin Mo-young's 2014 Korean documentary follows an elderly couple married for seventy-six years. The husband is ninety-eight and the wife eighty-nine; they wear matching traditional clothes, walk together and sleep holding hands. The first half is almost entirely daily life. Sweeping leaves, throwing snowballs, teasing each other; the camera looks for no event. In the second half the husband's health fails, and the film records how that known ending is lived. It became an unexpectedly large box office success for an independent documentary in South Korea. Jin does not intervene and steers nothing beyond the music; the film's power comes from watching the same two people for a long time. Who it's for: those who like observational documentary and narratives about old age. Who it's not for: viewers who have recently suffered a loss; the film shows preparation for death directly.