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| Jeon Do-yeon, Seon Jung-yeop, and Song Kang-ho in Secret Sunshine |
Painful without being oppressive, Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine manages to be a film critical of religion without being either against it or for it. It centers on the great loss suffered by Lee Shin-aie (Jeon Do-yeon in a performance that won best actress at Cannes), a young widow trying to start a new life with her small son. But when he is abducted and murdered, she finds herself seeking comfort in an evangelical Christian community. It's primarily a film about otherness, about the struggles of the solitary spirit, and Lee accomplishes wonders without taking sides in the struggles of his characters.