Synopsis
Death of someone changes the way we remember the person. No longer existing in the actual world, the person becomes a fixture in our memory, never to be seen or touched again. In this film, an old woman is performing the farewell ceremony for her son by embalming his dead body. The dear yearning for her lost son is strongly felt as the images of her alive son are juxtaposed with the sound of her sighs at every step of the ceremony. In concluding the ceremony, she suspends the flow of the time by stopping the pendulum on a clock. This film consists of different layers of time intertwined together. The opening sequence where the neatly groomed woman is staring at the wall after death of her son implies that the rest of the scenes are the flashback made up of different points in time. Such construction of the time frame may be the indication of the eternal presence of the dead son in her memory. At the same time, one senses from her inaudible sighs the despair felt within the woman as she realizes that the only place for her beloved son is now inside her memory. An eternity therefore is a film that invites us to deeply speculate about death and remembrance. (PARK Ji-Yeon)