The World Before ★★★

Set over a languid summer on a remote Korean island, Yoon Dan-bi weaves a tender tale of the threshold from childlike naivety to adult feelings, from friendship to romance, from a lingering past to an uncertain future. The idyllic setting becomes a dreamy allegory for the world of youthful fantasies that is crumbling bit by bit under the increasing weight of adult responsibility and understanding. A crucial shift interrupts the calm routine of 17-year-old Jin (Sim Su-bin) when her childhood friend Dujae (Kim Eo-jin) returns from Seoul after his grandmother’s death. A touch of poetic sensitivity turns the tropes of teenage romance into a bittersweet coming-of-age tale.

At its heart is the budding one-sided romance as an example of changing and contradicting perception. During lazy afternoon conversations, bicycle rides through the scenic countryside, and shared snacks, the protagonist and her friend, who carries some dark secrets, leave the ideals of the freedom and excitement of young adulthood slowly behind. With an eye for emotional nuances and delicate details, the Korean director-writer observes how the two friends experience the same situation differently and interpret it in opposing ways. For Dujae, Jin is just one more melancholic marker of a time of security invariably lost. She, on the other hand, imagines him as more than just a friend.

Still, what this “more” is supposed to be, even Jin isn’t sure. Feelings are fleeting and escape the characters’ grasp as soon as they try to define them. The ending in the form of death that brings Dujae to the island marks a new beginning — young love — which in turn means the ending of childhood bonds. Their repeated visits to an abandoned house where he once used to live underline his secret longing for a past that is seemingly still within reach, only waiting for him to return and inhabit it again. His half-hearted attempts to do so are thwarted by another harsh reality. 

A small group of migrant workers has, apparently without any concession, moved into the vacant space for lack of shelter. As Dujae befriends one of the men who tells him in broken Korean of his own family back home, he sees his own pain reflected in other people’s struggle. Empathy and compassion are central motifs to the concentric plot moving as leisurely and playfully as the characters. Their emotional growth is the actual focus of a cinematic portrait with little to no dramatic drive. The slow pacing and lack of crucial developments can become exhausting, but the nuanced performances still manage to ground the flighty events. 

Lee Seong-eun’s impressionist cinematography captures the island’s beauty in lyrical images, occasionally bordering on kitsch. Warm light glistens through the foliage of lush forests and the isolated area seems literally and figuratively removed from the troubles of the outside world. It’s never quite clear how much of Jin’s surroundings is meant to be her own idealised view of a reality only really perforated by darker truths. One of these is the structural limitations of the island that, despite its captivating aura, is a place of stasis. As a representation of nostalgia, it ultimately must come to an end, just like Yoon’s own cinematic musing.