"Now my eyes have seen you": A comparative study of Secret Sunshine and the Book of Job

• Main Author: NG, Teng-kuan
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2011
• Subjects: Job; Korean cinema; Lee Chang-Dong; Religion and film; Secret Sunshine; Organization Development; Strategic Management Policy
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cis_research/65; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/cis_research/article/1064/viewcontent/Now_My_Eyes_Have_Seen_You.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This essay engages in a comparative study of Lee Chang-Dong's Secret Sunshine (2007) in light of the biblical book of Job, focusing on issues of grief, recovery, and theodicy. Drawing from perspectives in philosophical, mystical, and pastoral theology, three allegorical interpretations of the film's title are suggested. The eponymous “secret sunshine” adumbrates, first, the female protagonist Shin-Ae's hidden journey toward her true self, a self in which the theological virtues of faith and love are mystically internalized. Second, it intimates the quiet, unobtrusive presence of an emphatic Immanuel in the figure of Jong-Chan, the film's male protagonist. Finally, through a meditative exegesis of the film's closing sequences, it will be argued that “secret sunshine” points toward the transcendent beauty and comfort that may be found in the quotidian and commonplace.