The Korean film “OASIS” explores the boundaries between disconnection and communication, reality and fantasy, and how the two main characters grow as human beings through the love of an ex-convict and a severely disabled person with cerebral palsy, who are marginalized by society. The film combines gritty realism with fantastical elements to deeply explore the authenticity of life.
Introduction
OASIS, directed by Lee Chang-dong, tells the love story of a three-time convicted rapist and a disabled man with severe cerebral palsy. In one of the main settings of the movie, the disabled man’s room, a cheap carpet hangs. The carpet depicts a couple of palm trees, a well, a baby elephant, a young woman in Indian-style clothing, and a naked child. Underneath the picture on this cheap carpet, you can also see the word ‘OASIS’ in English. The first scene of the movie opens with the camera looking at the cheap OASIS carpet with the shadows of the trees.
The dictionary definition of ‘oasis’ is “a place in the middle of a desert where a spring flows and vegetation grows. A metaphor for a place of comfort in life.” From this definition, we can see that the oasis the movie is referring to is the meaning of ‘love’ or ‘happiness’ as used in the expression ‘You are my oasis’. The main characters of the movie, Hong Jong-doo and Princess Han, are labeled as an ex-convict and a disabled person, and the movie tells a story of love and hope through the meeting of these two people who are completely incompatible with each other.
The reason I focus on “OASIS” is because it shows that a love story that could be dismissed as a “common melodrama” can become a “masterpiece” depending on how it is told. The film tells a story about reality and fantasy, disconnection and communication, pain and growth, freedom and tomorrow, all through the lens of love.
The narrative of “OASIS”
The story begins as sunlight shines on the carpet in Princess Han’s room. After being released from prison, Hong Jong-doo wanders around unaware of the address of his family, who have moved away. Jong-doo is picked up by the police and reunited with his family with the help of his brother Jong-se. Jong-doo’s brother Jong-il gives Jong-doo a job as a delivery boy for a Chinese restaurant, and Jong-doo travels to Princess Han’s house. On the day of Jong-doo’s visit, Princess Han’s brother Han Sang-sik and his wife move into a new apartment, leaving the princess behind, and Jong-doo and the princess meet for the first time.
Jong-doo delivers a bouquet of flowers to the princess’s house. Jong-doo goes to the princess’s house again and gives her the phone number of his brother’s garage and suddenly tries to rape her, but when she faints, he leaves her in the bathroom and runs away. A few days later, the princess calls Jong-doo on the phone, and they talk and gradually fall in love.
The princess, who is 29 years old and still gets spanked by her brother when she does something wrong, whose favorite food is sleeping noodles, whose legs are always shaking, and Jongdu, who loves to play in the mirror, is afraid of the shadows of trees on the carpet, and hates beans, are like children. They haven’t grown up yet; they can’t communicate in the adult world like children. They don’t have the power to protect themselves, and adults don’t understand them.
For them, like children, love is the most sincere emotion. When the princess calls Zongdu on the phone and they meet at the princess’s house, the princess opens the door to the house herself with her disabled body. Jong-doo struggles to get into the same position as the princess, who is squatting down. Their facial expressions become more and more similar, and in the princess’s imagination and Jong-doo’s dreams, love becomes complete. The shadows of the trees in the OASIS on the wall disappear to Jongdu’s ‘surisurisurisuris’, and the princess, her body free, dances with Jongdu and the pictures in the OASIS. For them, fantasy is no longer fantasy, but reality.
The moment they whisper their love, the adults see their love as rape. In the eyes of the adults, the princess is not a woman and Jong-doo is only a pervert. However, when Jong-doo escapes from the police station and cuts off all the branches that illuminate the princess’s OASIS, the princess feels him and struggles to turn up the volume on the radio. At this moment, their love is no longer a fantasy, but a reality.
The film ends in the princess’s light-filled home, where Jong-doo’s letter from prison is being read, with the princess sweeping the floor of her room with a broom. In a Hollywood remake, this scene would undoubtedly have ended with Jong-doo and the princess’s emotional release from prison, but in Lee Chang-dong’s OASIS, we don’t know if they will meet again or get married; all we know is that they are currently in love, and they are growing through that love.
Analyzing the mise en scène of OASIS
The visuals of “OASIS” are characterized by the use of hand-held cameras and long takes. Handheld cameras and long takes are used for the purpose of pursuing realism in the film, and through them, the filmmaker effectively realizes mise en scène in the film to build the meaning of the film. From this perspective, I attempt to analyze the meaning that is realized in the film.
Disconnection: Television and Reality
As social outcasts, Jong-doo and the princess are disconnected from everyone in the adult world. In the movie, the image of disconnection is represented by the medium of communication, television. Television conveys information in a single direction from the sender to the receiver. The director chooses the non-communicative nature of television to build the meaning of disconnection within the frame.
In the scene at the police station where Jong-doo is being held, the most alien of the props in the background is the television. No one cares that the television is on where the cops are doing their job; none of the characters look at it, and the television talks to itself.
In the scene where he takes his brother’s money to go on a date with the princess, there’s another television on behind him as he dozes off. In this scene, too, none of the characters in the frame are looking at the television. The repetition of the “on television” suggests a break in communication because no one is looking at it.
On the other hand, the television in the scene where the princess is kicked out of the restaurant she came with is being watched by the patrons of the restaurant. After being rejected from the restaurant for being disabled, Jongdu repeats the act of turning off and on the television that the customers are watching. In a restaurant, the television is front and center, the center of attention for all patrons. In a restaurant that is meant to be a space for communication, the television acts as a barrier to that communication. In this space, Jong-doo’s and the princess’ feelings of rejection can only be expressed through the act of turning Jong-doo’s television off and on.
The image of disconnection is reiterated through foreigners, danger signs, and telephones. When Jong-doo gets out of jail and stands at a telephone box to make a call to find the house he has moved to, he has no coins and tries to borrow some from two middle school girls. But he cannot borrow coins, and a foreigner stands in front of him and makes the call. Jong-doo cannot borrow coins from a foreigner, and he does not even try to speak to the foreigner, who does not speak his language. In this case, the foreigner is an adult in the real world. To him, adults are like foreigners who don’t understand him, even though they speak the same language. The foreigner stands with his back to him and makes a phone call elsewhere. There is an absolute disconnect between him and the foreigner.
There’s a scene where Jong-doo tries to rape the princess, fails, and on his way out, he kicks a danger sign on a construction board. The sign is already blocking passersby by its presence. When Jongdu first sees the sign on his way to the princess’s house, it is seen as a mere obstacle to passerby communication. However, when Jongdu runs away, the sign signifies a disconnect between Jongdu and the princess, and he kicks it to show that he wants to communicate with her.
At the height of the tension when Jong-doo is accused of rape for having sex with the princess, Jong-doo runs away from the police station, snatches a cell phone from a passerby, and calls the princess. However, Jong-doo is unable to communicate with the princess. When Jong-doo is given a cell phone, which represents the freedom of personal communication, the cell phone is unable to fulfill its role. We see the most powerful tool of communication, the cell phone, become powerless in the face of the communication between Jong-doo and the princess, and we feel the height of disconnection.
All of these images of disconnection exist within the reality of the movie. Everything in the movie’s reality prevents them from communicating: Jongdu’s mental disconnect and the princess’s physical disconnect in their separate lives, and when Jongdu and the princess fall in love, their individual disconnects merge into a larger disconnect. To everyone but Jongdu and the princess, their love is seen as a perverted rape; Jongdu doesn’t talk about his love to people like foreigners, and even when he tries to, people don’t understand; theirs is a love that will never be understood.
Communication: Radio and Illusion
When the Cheonggyecheon overpass is jammed with cars, Jong-doo and the princess get out of the car and dance to the sound of the radio. One of the most laborious scenes in the movie, along with the princess’s OASIS vision, what’s important to note about this scene is the standing cars and the song on the radio. The Cheonggyecheon overpass, filled with cars and unable to move, is a visual backdrop that represents the disconnectedness of reality. In a life filled with disconnection, Jongdu and the princess dance freely. The soundtrack is a song from a car radio, which serves as both foreground music and auditory background. When Zongdu and the princess are together, disconnection doesn’t exist for them, and they are able to fully communicate in a world full of disconnection. The contrast of these images makes their love, which is all about communication, seem even greater.
The radio as a medium of communication between Jongdu and the princess is reiterated in the film’s climax, when the princess turns up the sound of the radio for Jongdu to hear as he chops branches. Without physical freedom, the princess is unable to look at Jongdu as he cuts branches for her because of the closed window, and she is unable to speak to him. The princess turns up the volume on the radio to prove that they are communicating, even though she cannot look at Jongdu. The princess uses her own voice to say “I love you” to Jongdu. It’s a meaningless CM song on repeat, but to Jongdu, who hears the radio, it’s a whisper of love. Just hearing the sound of the radio makes him dance and gives him strength. In this way, the radio acts as a medium of communication that can bridge their disconnection, making communication possible in the movie’s reality.
The princess, alone, plays with mirrors and creates a dove and a butterfly out of light. Both pigeons and butterflies are animals with wings, which means they have the ability to fly freely. For the retarded princess, her disconnection from the world is a result of her body not being able to fly freely. So she dreams of freedom and draws a pigeon with light. Even when the mirror slips from her unsteady hands and breaks into pieces, she still dreams of freedom through the mirror and the light. With a body that can only crawl, the princess moves on from the dove and dreams of the shape of a butterfly. A butterfly is a caterpillar that emerges from an egg, cocoons, and gains wings. In this scene, the princess is the caterpillar, and the butterfly that exists in her fantasy is the version of herself that she dreams of becoming. She dreams of physical freedom, and she also dreams of connecting with others.
Jongdu, whom she meets while playing with mirrors, is an immediate image of freedom for the princess, and she gains freedom through her fantasy and communicates through that freedom. The fantasy of seeing a normal lover on the subway and imitating that lover’s appearance, and the fantasy of playing pranks on Jong-doo at the car center all day (Jong-doo’s older brother), crying and laughing, are just normal lover’s fantasies. The princess’s fantasies are not fantastical at all, but rather come to us as realistic: through the unexaggerated screen composition and the exclusion of sentimental background music, the princess’s fantasies depict a reality that is impossible for a princess, but all too common for a normal person.
The dream of the OASIS is a scene where Jong-doo’s dream of dancing with the figures on the OASIS carpet is realized in the princess’s fantasy, which connects to the dance on the Cheonggyecheon overpass in the film’s reality. Whereas in reality, Jongdu danced on a road full of cars with the princess in his arms, in the fantasy, Jongdu, the princess, a baby elephant, a child, and an Indian woman all dance together, holding hands. It’s also the only scene in the movie where music is playing in the background, and it shows that the fantasy is fantasy as fantasy, and not the reality of the previous fantasies. The fantasy scene in the princess’s house, with Indian music playing and flower petals falling, is set in a dialectical relationship with the scene on the Cheonggyecheon overpass, giving reality to the fantasy. In Jongdu and the princess’s love, this fantasy is taken for granted.
Jong-doo and the princess are not welcomed at Jong-doo’s mother’s birthday party, so they leave and go to a karaoke bar. At the karaoke bar, the princess is unable to sing, but at the subway station, where she misses the last train, the princess gets out of her wheelchair and sings “What if I were you” to Jong-doo. She then sits Jong-doo in her wheelchair and strokes his hair. This scene represents the princess’s desire to give love, as does Jong-doo washing her hair and doing laundry for her. The princess sings a song about being able to be anything for the person she loves (What if I were you), and dreams of freedom for someone other than herself. After singing the song, Jong-doo and the princess sleep together. Their sleeping together doesn’t end in sexual expression, but exists as a perfect communication. The movie’s gaze on it is also not obscene, but simply gentle.
The image of communication presented so far exists only in fantasy at the beginning of the movie, but as the movie progresses and the love between Jong-doo and the princess deepens, the image of communication shifts from fantasy to reality, from reality to fantasy. By the end, there is no fantasy for them, and the image of communication is realized in reality. The final image of communication comes through Jongdu’s letter, and the broom in the princess’s hand signifies that she has gained the ability to protect their love or communication. The princess is not a passive being who cannot move, but an active being who is guarding her space.
Love leads to growth
Although this movie depicts a love story, you can find the flow of a coming-of-age movie within it. There is a flow where two imperfect people emerge and grow under the influence of each other. This flow can also be understood in the context of hero mythology, where we can detect the human figure that is born as a hero through hardship.
The princess gains her freedom through her love with Jongdu. In her first scene outside with Jongdu, the frame emphasizes the image of the sky by positioning Jongdu lying down on his right side. For the princess, Zongdu is an image of freedom, like the sky. Through their love, the princess is able to break free from her physical restraints and become mentally free.
Through his love for the princess, the Zhongdu is given a call to action. Thinking that the only thing he can do for the princess is to cast a spell to get rid of the shadows on the carpet, Jongdu realizes that the solution is to cut the entity that creates the shadows on the carpet, the tree branch. The act of running away from the police station and cutting down the tree branch in front of the princess’s house signifies that he becomes an active agent in his reality.
Authenticity in everyday life
We all dream of love and think that it will make us more complete beings. Of course, there is love that makes you grow, and many people believe that they have grown through love. Even if the moments of love are painful and hard to bear, love is a force for growth. This movie chose the people who hide at the bottom of society as the protagonists of its story, and through the intersection of reality and fantasy, we wanted to get closer to reality.
In OASIS, disconnection, communication, and growth are not separate from each other; even if they are insignificant props in the real lives shown in the movie, they come to us as a meaning. The film’s realistic presentation and the realism of the fantasy are also there to show the weight of everyday life: even if it is a common love story, we can find the truth of life in it.
