Lee Chang-dong: This Crumbling World, This Support That Keeps Us Standing

Abstract

This article examines the films of South Korean director Lee Chang-dong, focusing on his continuing exploration of social transformation, individual destiny, moral dilemmas, and spiritual redemption. It argues that Lee’s cinema does not establish its identity through an overt visual style, but through a delicate balance between image and narrative, presenting a world in decline while searching for points of spiritual support through ordinary lives.

Beginning with Green Fish, Peppermint Candy, and Oasis, the article analyzes how Lee Chang-dong connects individual destinies with South Korea’s historical transformation through recurring spatial images such as trains, railways, and bridges. His characters are often marginalized figures unable to fully enter the new social order of modernization. Yet they preserve innocence, moral awareness, and emotional memories from the past, and these very qualities become the source of their tragic encounters.

The article further discusses the role of “objects of innocence” in Lee Chang-dong’s films, arguing that images such as peppermint candy, the red scarf, and the oasis painting preserve the characters’ uncorrupted inner worlds. The disappearance of these symbolic objects marks the rupture between individuals and the world around them. Through ordinary people’s struggles, Lee reveals the gradual erosion of morality, dignity, and emotional connections in modern society.

The article then examines Lee’s later works, including Secret Sunshine, Poetry, and Burning, arguing that his cinema moves toward deeper questions of trauma, guilt, forgiveness, and the search for meaning. The female protagonists in Secret Sunshine and Poetry demonstrate spiritual resilience through their confrontation with suffering and moral responsibility, while Burning portrays the uncertainty, anxiety, and hidden forces of collapse within contemporary society.

The article concludes that the significance of Lee Chang-dong’s cinema lies not in providing simple answers, but in searching for meanings worth preserving within an imperfect world. Through ordinary lives, artistic creation, and spiritual inquiry, his films become a quiet form of resistance against the disintegration of reality.