Return To Seoul with Davy Chou

Script Apart

Pack your bags, everyone. Today on Script Apart, we’re making an emotional Return To Seoul guided by Davy Chou – the writer-director behind one of 2023’s most alluring slow-burn dramas. Davy is a Franco-Cambodian writer-director whose own dual cultural heritages helped inform Return To Seoul, a film that poignantly probes questions of identity and displacement. It follows first-time actor Park Ji-min as Freddie – a young woman wandering through the home country of her biological parents in search of answers and in search of herself. Part inspired by the real-life experiences of artist Laure Badufle, with whom Davy co-wrote the screenplay, it’s a delicate, raw character study that will both move you immeasurably and made you want to visit Seoul right this very second.

There really is so much beautiful nuance to this story. In real life, we human beings are messy and contradictory. Return To Seoul basks in that complexity, forging characters out of it who are flawed, who let themselves down, who push people away when they ought to let others in. Around Freddie are a supporting cast of characters who are all similarly entangled in their own messy wants, desires, hopes and regrets. In the spoiler conversation you’re about to hear, Davy shares with me how he crafted these characters and this story. We talk about the clever ways the film accents the cultural disparities between Freddie and the parents who once abandoned her. We get into what the film seeks to say about transnational identity. And we break down the meaning of the film’s enigmatic ending – so be sure to check out the film, available on MUBI now, before listening in.
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