If This is Love,
PARK Soeun
- South Korea
- 2022
- 17min
- G
- DCP
- color
WP
Synopsis
Most people will be familiar with the experience of fervently loving someone in their lives. There are people who devote all they have to the things they love. I seek to explore their lives as someone(or something)’s stans(mania or enthusiast) I will ask all about their stanning practices, how they started to be someone’s bias, why they stan for someone, and what that life means to them. If you can call it that, it is indeed, love.
Review
The filmmaker, a senior at a boarding high school in Sancheong, Gyeongsangnam-do, interviews her friends on the subject of “fangirling,” and talks about the ways of fangirling, what they get out of it, what others think of it, and the relationship of fangirling and the lives of the students. Although the subject of fandom culture enjoyed by students has been addressed in many existing works, this film goes as far as exploring the human desires and the pursuit of happiness, not to mention that it touches upon the feelings of lacking shared by the students of the boarding school. Despite the latter part of the film that feels rather rough and beats around the bush, this impressive work attempts to connect the reality of life to the knowledge of it, while making us rethink the lives of the senior year high school students in Korea.
Director
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PARK Soeun
Park is a nineteen-year-old who fangirls. She currently goes to Jirisan High School. Under her motto, “fangirling is my life,” she spends more time geeking out with friends than studying.