Park Ji-Min, first magnetic role and revelation of Return to Seoul

poster ,

Park Ji-Min, in scarlet lipstick and a shell jacket, looks over her shoulder as she stalks straight into the night.

A silhouette that we want to follow as much as it impresses, like her character, Freddie: a young woman adopted as a baby by a French family, she finds herself, by chance which looks very much like a failed act, in his native country, South Korea.

While looking for her biological parents, Freddie is also looking for herself, between stormy encounters, evenings of drunkenness and abandonment, clash of cultures, language, and emotions.

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Before playing Freddie, Park Ji-Min, visual artist, had never been an actress.

It was the Franco-Cambodian director Davy Chou (author of the very beautiful

, a documentary on the lost cinema of Cambodia, in 2011, then

in 2016) who convinced her.

And it was together that they worked on this tumultuous, proud and touching character, whose career we follow over eight years.

In video, the trailer for

Return to Seoul

Madame Figaro

I told myself that there were a lot of common points between us.

I am not adopted but I am of Korean origin, I come from immigration

.

There were similarities in our way of being, of interacting with others.

But I never had the desire to be an actress.

It took me some time to really accept the role and to get used to the idea that I was going to participate in this project.

Why was it difficult?

Cinema is a medium that interests me a lot.

I watch many films, almost one a day, and even visually, it inspires me enormously.

But actress, I never had the idea.

I told myself that it must be difficult to feel dispossessed of oneself, of one's body, one's voice, one's face and one's gaze.

To serve a character and a story.

Especially since I'm used, when I do something, to give myself 300%, sometimes until exhaustion.

Finally, the film was, at the start, the story of a woman seen through the eyes of a man.

For me, it was also a big problem.

Park Ji-Min in

DR

How did you solve this question?

I told Davy that we had to rework the script precisely on this questioning, on the interaction of this character with the world, in front of men and also women.

He couldn't accept everything I told him at first, and that's normal: I myself am a designer, I know how difficult it is to let go.

But we really had to do some deconstruction work.

Davy understood that it was not about me, but about understanding all the violence that a woman can feel in our current society.

That if he didn't give me the space to express it, I couldn't make the film.

And he accepted.

It wasn't manipulation, he didn't accept for fear that I wouldn't make the film.

He understood that it was beneficial for the latter.

For me, Freddie is like water: if it stagnates, it rots.

Park Ji-Min

On these issues of male and female gaze, can you give an example of a scene that changed after you intervened?

There have been several.

It may look like a detail, but in fact, for me, it changes everything.

In one scene, Freddie finds himself with his French boyfriend, Maxime, in a car in Seoul, and is about to go meet his biological father and aunt.

In the basic scenario, she told him that this place was toxic for her, that she would have to be protected.

And Maxime replied, in a joking tone - which was already a very bad joke - that he would be his knight in service.

I told Davy it was impossible, that she couldn't say that given her trajectory.

That she was reduced to the vulnerability of a woman seen by a man, who had to be protected.

And the dialogue has changed.

There was also essential work on her look.

In the second part of the film,

Freddie was described in an ultrasexualized way: again, that's not a problem, I have nothing at all against women who are "ultra sexy".

But there again, she was seen through a male gaze, via somewhat clichéd images.

While a dark lipstick was enough.

Return to Seoul

, by Davy Chou DR

Metamorphoses

Freddie's appearance changes drastically throughout the film.

We see her as an androgynous millennial, femme fatale, businesswoman, backpacker... How do these metamorphoses accompany her intimate journey?

These physical transformations mark the fact that it is a character who changes skin, and this allows him to move forward.

For me, Freddie is like water: if it stagnates, it rots.

We are entitled to put down roots, but she moves forward all the time.

It's not a headlong rush, it's a way of surviving.

And adapt to survive?

That's it.

Unfortunately, adaptation for survival is often something extremely violent.

I can say it, I am an immigrant, France is not my native country, and I know how difficult it is to live, this pressure, having to adapt.

I think these brutal skin changes, this vital need to move forward without looking back come from there.

How do you think the story of this young woman,

“

”

As humans, we are complex, full of paradoxes and contradictions.

I think people who say to themselves “OK, I have an identity, it is fixed”, it is not possible.

Freddie is a character who, precisely, is not afraid to say: "Okay, it's chaos but at least I'm not afraid to explore".

I don't even think she finds exact answers but that's okay, she tries.

For me, it's almost a lost soul, but that's not a negative.

It is truly a soul that sails, that tries multiple experiences and that tries to live.