In this blog post, we explore why the deep emotional resonance and healing power of tears in melodramas leave such a special comfort in our hearts, focusing on the Korean film ‘Family’.
I love melodramas. When I’m sad or lonely, or when my solitary room feels desolate, I can fully immerse myself in the protagonist on screen and cry my eyes out. Of course, laughing is probably better for mental health than crying, but when I want to break through a stifling feeling, the catharsis I experience through endless tears and wailing is simply the best.
My love for melodramas began with “Happiness Isn’t Based on Grades,” which I saw on TV when I was very young and knew nothing. It has continued to this day. Being at an age where I’m sensitive to even small things, melodramas made me cry over the slightest content and sprinkled moisture on my emotions, which were drying up from familiarity with daily life. However, most of the films I’ve loved so far have been melodramas about love between men and women. Is it because I haven’t yet experienced that tear-jerking, heart-wrenching love myself? Watching such films, I’ve imagined myself as the female lead, or the male lead, quietly dreaming of my own sad yet beautiful romance. Of course, if I had actually experienced that aching, painful love, the feeling might have been a little different.
Naturally, the TV dramas I enjoy watching are also predominantly melodramas. Whether they’re popular or not doesn’t matter; if they suit my taste, that’s enough. Even during my senior year of high school, right before midterms, I never missed an episode of the melodrama that made me cry every single time. I watched it religiously, afraid of losing track of the plot or letting my emotions, which had somehow become so invested in the protagonists, falter. My favorite melodramas, and most popular ones too, are likely the same. Unfulfilled love between a man and a woman, their sorrow and tears, their pain form the core of the narrative. And in over 80% of melodramatic movies or TV dramas, at least one of the protagonists meets their end. That love’s conclusion leads to death… It’s not that I don’t feel fear about the love that lies ahead for me, but since humans are destined to die someday anyway, the sight of protagonists who love to the fullest before departing strikes me as an incredibly beautiful scene.
Thus, the key characteristics of melodrama can be described as sad reality, turning away from reality, escape, suppression, and death. It portrays the tragic reality where love between a man and a woman cannot be fulfilled, where they turn away from that reality and flee to their own world, only to inevitably return to reality. And even if they deny reality and create something new, it is never truly their own. One cannot be reborn as a person completely detached from the expectations formed by the very forces that oppressed and hindered them, and the psychological expectations of those around them. Ultimately, at some point, one must compromise with reality. This, I believe, is the primary conflict development pattern of melodrama.
Earlier, I mentioned that I have mostly watched melodramas dealing with love between men and women. Perhaps this is because I hadn’t sufficiently opened my eyes to other forms of love. A prosperous family life, diverse external activities, reliable friends and seniors/juniors. Precisely because I was with them, I had momentarily forgotten how precious they were. I simply missed the lover who wasn’t by my side right now, and it seemed like my life would be perfect if only that void were filled. But upon entering university, I inevitably began studying abroad in Seoul, and in that process, I discovered a kind of longing I had never felt before. Family, friends, and even the lover I’d always dreamed of. All that longing flooded into my life at once, and I found myself feeling grateful for their presence every single day.
The movie “Family” is, quite literally, a family melodrama. Just from the feeling the title gives and the image the poster conveys, you could roughly guess what message this film was trying to convey to the audience. One thing I noticed while watching this film was that it dealt with “fatherly love” – a theme that had been hard to find in Korean cinema, especially rare during the time I started watching movies. From traditional times to the present—though things have certainly improved now—Korea has firmly upheld the framework of the patriarchal system. As the saying “strict father, kind mother” suggests, fathers were always seen as strong figures, maintaining the position of the stern head of the household, while mothers were regarded as tender and warm beings. But how could the hearts of parents toward their children fundamentally differ? Their expressions may differ, but the hearts of fathers and mothers toward their own flesh and blood are ultimately one. Of course, parents who are not like this occasionally surface in news, newspapers, or online. Horrific cases exist: mothers who kill their children because they see them as obstacles to their own future, fathers who sexually assault their own daughters, mothers who sell their daughters into brothels for money. So, what about the children’s perspective? If a child returns even one-hundredth of the love their parents gave them, they are called a filial son or daughter. This also speaks to how many people take their parents, who made their very existence possible, for granted. In that sense, the film “Public Enemy” was a work that left a significant impact on me. In the image of a mother swallowing her fingernails to conceal the crime of the son who killed her, I felt that a parent’s love for their child truly knows no bounds. It showed me that such love can even overcome resentment or anger towards the child who took their life.
“Family” is a film that must be seen by those who, because they are always with us, fail to easily recognize their preciousness, and who sometimes feel ashamed or resentful of their very existence. Compared to lighthearted comedies, melodramas seem to possess a power that draws us deeper into their inner worlds. Through tears, they prompt reflection on past regrets and our own shortcomings, making us more readily aware of neglected consciousness. I believe the medium that enables this is human “tears.” Emotional catharsis and enlightenment through tears. I wonder if this is why so many people, myself included, enjoy the melodrama genre. “Family” faithfully fulfills this function of melodrama. Following the actors’ performances—restrained at times, then suddenly overflowing—and their tears stopping only to flow again, I too found myself laughing and crying.
Watching the father (Joo Hyun) and Jung Eun (Soo Ae) struggle to understand each other, I naturally thought of myself and my own father. The actor playing the father resembled my father in both appearance and personality, making his portrayal feel even more vivid. Like Jung Eun, I too have lived without truly understanding my father. I think this is because I projected all these feelings onto my mother. Being a girl and growing up closer to my mother, I inevitably heard more of her stories. Consequently, the path to understanding my father’s love and his heart was very narrow. Jung-eun also viewed her father from her mother’s perspective. The sadness she sensed in her mother and the resentment toward her father pushed her further away from him. I felt the root of this problem stemmed from a lack of communication. Both Jung-eun and I lacked conversation with our fathers. They say language is a window into the heart, but without that linguistic communication, it was as if we never had the chance to understand each other’s feelings. Jung-eun, who was ashamed that her father’s eyes were “deformed.” What if she had known that her father had injured his eyes precisely because of her? What if there had been sufficient conversation and understanding between them? What would their father-daughter relationship have looked like? Perhaps the foolish girl of the past, who resented and felt ashamed of her father, would not have existed, and the two might have grown closer to each other. Though father and daughter had long neglected each other deep within their hearts, failing to understand one another, it didn’t take long for their relationship to mend. It seems this was possible precisely because they were family. No group or organization in the world can overcome a small family. That’s how close-knit a family is, and also how selfish. Because they only know each other.
The time Jung-eun and her father spent resolving their misunderstandings, opening their hearts to each other, and finding happiness wasn’t very long. The fate that came upon them, and the situation they had to overcome. Their happiness is swiftly destroyed by social oppression and interference. What their family ultimately desired was “happiness,” yet the means didn’t seem quite right. Killing others for one’s own happiness can never be justified. In the end, they too were merely selfish human beings. Jung-eun’s father, a former police officer, kills someone and meets his end because of it. The irony is striking. It might be a slightly exaggerated interpretation, but it also brought to mind the faces of terrifying people who stop at nothing for their own happiness. Of course, his actions could be seen as an expression of paternal love for his daughter, perhaps a final gift for all the times he failed her. Since he was going to die anyway, his actions stemmed from a desire to pull his daughter onto the right path. While the plot may be somewhat detached from reality, it also feels like a story that could actually happen around me. Parents will jump through fire for their children; in this film, that face was simply that of a father, not a mother. Films expressing a mother’s love for her child in this manner are already quite numerous. Not just in films, but I believe most parents would do anything for their children. Though I haven’t yet become a parent myself and can’t fully comprehend that feeling, thinking of my own mother and father, I believe they would certainly do so.
Finding iconic elements characteristic of the melodrama genre in this film is very difficult. While it clearly follows the narrative conventions of the melodrama genre, there are few devices that visually emphasize these conventions through specific objects or symbols. Though I’ve seen many melodramas over the years, perhaps I simply didn’t pay close enough attention. While commonalities in conflict or narrative structure are clearly discernible, deriving shared meanings from the internal significance of objects proved exceedingly difficult. This experience made me keenly aware of the need for deeper study of this genre.
So, even if distinctive icons are hard to find, what allows us to confidently call this film a melodrama? First, true to the classic traits of melodrama, it powerfully stimulates the audience’s tear ducts. Throughout the film, I wept and wept again, crying out loud. By the end, I was so drained I had no strength left to cry anymore—truly a work that fits the description of a tearjerker. Furthermore, the protagonists are clearly subjected to social oppression. The backdrop is the story of a poor family, a common theme in melodramas. Because of that poverty, and because of money, their daily lives become tangled and twisted. Jung, who grew bitter and twisted from hating her poor family, finds herself in trouble again due to her past greed—even after going to prison over money. The way poverty and money become sins is largely due to the contradictions of the social structure. While we preach that good and honest people should be held in the highest regard, in real life, money and class take precedence. Conscience and morality seem to be of no concern. Most people struggle day by day, scrambling to climb higher. In a world filled with such people, the good and honest are constantly plunged into anguish and conflict. Eventually, they end up compromising with reality. The method they choose to survive within this oppressive social structure is ultimately compromise and corruption. The world is simply too harsh to live while maintaining one’s purity to the end. Keeping this perspective in mind while watching the film allows one to understand their actions a little better. The film’s ending also shows the father ultimately facing death, yet the happy smiles of Jung-eun and Jung-hwan implicitly suggest the two are living peaceful lives. While it could be seen as a slight happy ending, the inevitability of the father’s death and the fact that the path to this happy ending was anything but happy itself leave a lingering regret that the film never fully breaks free from the conventional melodrama framework. Couldn’t it have achieved a truly happy ending by overcoming societal oppression in a brighter direction? The answer to this question seems to remain an unresolved homework assignment. Perhaps this is an unavoidable limitation inherent to melodramas.
Regardless, I believe I was able to fully embrace at least part of the message inherent within this film. It offered a seemingly small yet profound realization about the true value of family and what I must do for them. Watching this film, which could be called a story of paternal love, also led me to reflect deeply on my own father. Though he was a gruff, patriarchal father, he too was a vulnerable being capable of being hurt, and above all else, he was a parent who cherished his child more than anyone else… In his life, shaped by a culture accustomed to war, a male-centered culture, and the lifelong burden of responsibility as the eldest son, the words “tenderness” and “warmth” might have felt like distant concepts. Now, I must be the one to reach out to him first. Because I know his remaining time is not long, and I’ve come to understand, at least a little, what lies within him. I know that living on this earth as a father is never easy, and that he had to sacrifice much because of it. And I think I can finally see that most of what he had to sacrifice was ultimately for me.
Once again, I’m struck by the immense power of melodramas. As mentioned earlier, it seems melodramas can convey messages with far greater impact than the romantic comedy genre, which is often dismissed with a laugh. Is there anything more meaningful than tears? Just as men are vulnerable to a woman’s tears, and women to a man’s, audiences too easily crumble before an actor’s tears. Yet this weakness doesn’t signify a faltering of one’s inner identity or convictions. The vulnerability here is the fragility exposed when confronting one’s own flaws, faults, and regrets. The tears shed by the actor, and the tears shed by the audience themselves, wash away these weakened parts, allowing one to face a purer self. That is why the message and influence a melodrama seeks to convey can penetrate far deeper into the heart than what a romantic comedy conveys.
Film is the art form most intimately connected to humanity, a miniature life that recreates human existence. When I place myself within it, when I carry myself into its depths, I believe my life too can one day become a grand film. A film that feels me and conveys me. There, I learned another part of my life today.
