When My Love Blooms (2020)

Questa storia mi ha accompagnato per una settimana avvolgendosi intorno al mio cuore come una coperta calda nei giorni di pioggia. Il narrato si sviluppa su due piani: il 1995 quando i due protagonisti s'innamorano per la prima volta e il 2020 quando si ritrovano in apparenza totalmente cambiati.
Nel periodo delle contestazioni e dei movimenti studenteschi nasce l'amore tra Ji Soon e Jae Hyun. I due giovani attori sono davvero bravissimi e coinvolgenti: idealisti, lottano per difendere i più deboli e creare un mondo migliore. Peccato che i loro sogni si schiantino contro il mondo degli adulti che li piega in una realtà dolorosa tenendoli separati per venticinque anni.
Tuttavia, nelle puntate iniziali è davvero difficile individuare il collegamento tra i quattro protagonisti. Sembra di assistere a dei vissuti estranei l'uno all'altro. Come riconoscere nel Jae Hyun quarantenne "Mani di Forbice", vicepresidente di un conglomerato, il ventenne dolce e appassionato che si batteva per i diritti dei più umili? E nella Ji Soon mamma divorziata, un po' trasandata, che si arrabatta tra mille lavoretti part time, la fresca e indomita ragazza che aveva sfidato il padre magistrato per amore di Jae Hyun? Ammetto che i due protagonisti quarantenni sono bravi ma hanno molto meno mordente rispetto alla controparte del "1995". Dovendo interpretare due ruoli maturi e sofferenti sono molto più trattenuti e, sinceramente, non ho trovato tutta questa chimica. Però, la storia è davvero bella, drammatica ma senza personaggi stereotipati e cliché. E' lenta, questo si, va vista e apprezzata un pochino per volta per assimilare tutti gli avvenimenti e i sentimenti che ogni puntata si porta con se'.
I personaggi sono molto sfaccettati e a parte il "cattivo" per eccellenza, tutti gli altri vengono rappresentati come normali esseri umani con i loro pregi e difetti. Ji Soon, poi, è una donna fantastica, sfinita dalle sfortune ma capace di sfidare e rimettere "al loro posto" chiunque cerchi di fare del male a chi le sta vicino. E' infatti, proprio lei, quella che nonostante sembri la più debole, a dare la forza a Jae Hyun di ritornare se stesso, perdonarsi e perdonare. Il finale è molto dolce ed è bello assistere all'evoluzione di tutti verso un domani migliore.

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Good stuff. Complex. Powerful at times. Yet you better don´t set the primary focus on the romance.

No idea why the international title is what it is... so beware! If you're expecting a love story here, you'll get one, but certainly not in the way you thought it would. With their motifs and soft focus, the posters for the KDrama also promise more heartbreak of the shallow kind than the story does justice to.

The original title "The most beautiful moment in life - the moment when life becomes a flower" describes the moment in which life (not love) acquires meaning, beauty, direction, form and can blossom. And here we are closer to the topic. The two protagonists have been in love with each other since their student days in the 90s. Yes. But it has grown through their attitude to life, the meaning they give to their own lives, through their principles and quite specifically through the class struggle, the union struggle, the demonstrations for more democracy. By boldly standing up for what they believe in, life is transformed into a (bright, fragrant, inspiring) flower.

To reduce life and its beauty to love would not be enough. But love is definitely part of it - just like water or the sun - to let these flowers (which can/want to be a person's life) grow. This flower reveals its inherent beauty in the creative expression of what is important to you, what you stand for, what you believe in.

In that sense, Yoon Ji-soo's seedling came to life after she met Han Yaeh-hyun during his pro-democracy and workers' rights protests. Ji-soo's enthusiasm for Yaeh-hyun's cause didn't go unnoticed for him either.

-------------- SIDE NOTE: --- Early unionists, political protest and rebellion against injustice ---
We are learning about South Korean democracy movement when it was still in its infancy. During the decades of the dictatorship, conservative politicians skillfully exploited the fear of the communist north and consistently interpreted or pursued any commitment to workers' rights as a communist threat. Strikes and demonstrations were always uncompromisingly dispersed and participants and leaders sentenced to prison terms. Even recently, in the last 5 years, trade unionists, fighting for workers' rights, have been and continue to be arrested for "offences against public order". In the case of convictions of corporate bosses/Jaebeol, a pardon usually follows quickly. Unionists, however, always have to serve their long sentences. Recently, for example, the KCTU chairman Han Sang-gyun was sentenced to three years in prison during an organized mass rally for workers' rights (2016) and Jang Ok-gi from the construction workers' union was imprisoned for a protest march for higher pensions for non-permanent construction workers (2017).
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So the context of this love story is quite serious. And the KDrama cleverly wraps and links this 'seriousness' around the love plot of the two protagonists. The story is told in time leaps between then and now. It tells how Ji-soo's father (head of the district attorney's office) opposes the young love, it tells about Yaeh-hyun's father's unsuccessful struggle for worker´s rights, about Jaebeol Jang Sang, into whose family Yaeh-hyun marries, and about the unscrupulous intrigues of father and daughter, as well as the elite family of lawyers that Ji-soo married into. It tells of the intolerable arrogance of the wealthy towards the lower-income classes, which continues in the form of bullying among their children. It tells of courageous class struggle and rebellion against injustice. It tells of the almost hopeless struggle for one's own rights in the face of powerful opponents. And that it's never too late to let the flower of your life bloom.

So, should you watch it? Yes, it´s good stuff. Complex. Powerful at times. But don´t set the primary focus on the romance. Otherwise you might be a bit disappointed.

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