Stephanie Ahn’s ‘Bedford Park’ will make you hungry, then break your heart

ZL: I’m thinking of that moment where we see Audrey and her mom walking out of the grocery store, and the camera is set up in the back of the car, and it’s all framed in such a way that we see them walking in real time to the trunk. You could have framed that in any other way, but that position does communicate a particular attention.
SA: Yes, that scene starts with them out of view. It’s really about listening to them but not following them. You first have to “see” them with your ears, then you see them in the distance, and then those elements come together when they step into view. I didn’t want to feel like we were tailing them; I wanted to feel like we were patiently waiting for them.

ZL: More on David’s lovely camerawork, I appreciated the use of handheld cameras here, how you kept things up close, even for the film’s sex scenes. It communicates not just intimacy, but safety, breath, and elation mingled together into one melody.
SA: I can use Audrey as an example, but for people like her who grow up in a religious house, desire and sex equal shame. It’s an interesting observation, because part of me wanted to capture some of that shame for her. I wanted the camera to make her feel safe to feel that shame. 

ZL: As much as this is a film about Audrey and Eli, it’s also about parents and children, how they disappoint and fail each other. You’ve crafted a great ensemble around Moon and Son with Audrey’s parents, played by Won Mi-kyung and Kim Eung-soo. Those could have been one-note characters, but I’d love to hear about casting them and how they found their way into this story.
SA: Admittedly, I was not aware of Korean actors. We certainly looked in the United States, but there's a shortage of Korean American actors of that generation who I thought could capture that sensibility of the characters. We had a casting director in Korea. I was aware of a handful of Korean actors of that generation from just the Korean films that I'd seen, and this director sent me reels of certain actors. There was no shortage of talent. 

I’ll start with Kim Eung-soo, who plays the father. I was looking for someone who had a brusque facade but who could also deliver a heartbreaking line like “Your mother and I, we had dreams too.” There’s something vulnerable inside. I looked at some of his work, and when we met to speak about the character, he just completely understood him. He could play a man with lost dreams, and I knew he’d be able to be this alcoholic father who, on the outside, had to put up thick walls with his children, but inwardly he held onto the longings of his youth.

With Won Mi-kyung, she lives in the United States. She was a huge star in Korea back in the 70s and 80s; everyone knows who she is. She retired a little bit and went back into acting, not too long ago, mostly in TV acting. I met with her and read with her; she was striking to me. When you look at her face … she’s not only drop-dead gorgeous but she also embodies a kind of feminine womanhood that I wanted this character to have. I think so many times Korean mom types are stereotyped a certain way … she could play that, but I saw the young woman in her who had dreams as well. 

Son Suk-ku as Eli in "Bedford Park."

Courtesy of Sundance

ZL: For Mi-kyung, she seems aware, in some part, of the burden of her expectations. It’s not lost on me also that, given how Audrey’s brother is gay, I’m sure that caused tension in this religious Korean household.
SA: I always thought of these parents as people. My brother used to ask me this: “I wonder who our parents would be had they grown up in the U.S. and had the chance to actually explore who they were as opposed to having to just live into expectations and the roles that they thought they had to play as grown-ups.” I wanted Audrey’s parents to give off this essence of people who you think might have been different had they had the opportunities Audrey and her brother did.

ZL: The character of Audrey is someone who you’ve said is close to your experience. Given that you’re also a mother, I’m curious about how you’re in a life stage where, as much as you’ve been Audrey, you're moving towards the life perspective of her mother. What was it like to use the filmmaking process to process through that transition?
SA: I think that I would never have been able to tell this story before I became a mother, or at least had the perspective of parenthood that I have now. I understand my parents so much better now, and our bond looks different. I also needed the distance from my past to see it with some objectivity and see it from different angles. It was important for me that with each of these characters–even the guy, Edward, that Audrey’s mom sets her up with–they are not one-dimensional. I wanted the audience to see where they were coming from. As much as you empathize with Audrey, you can also understand why her parents would be frustrated with her, because Edward is a good guy! Why doesn’t she date him? 

ZL: The wordless scene where Eli and Audrey listen to the Rocky theme song is one of the most peculiar and beautiful moments in the film. In the opening of the film, we also don’t hear Audrey speak for a couple of beats. What’s your relationship with silence, particularly when it comes to its depiction in the film?
SA: Silence is my life force. I need it in my life. Silence to me is what gives you clarity. What I want most in my life is clarity, and I can’t get there without silence. It’s a daily practice; even if I’m in a crowd, I go into an internal silence. 

Being an editor, film to me is music. It’s all about rhythm; a story is rhythm, and you need silence to feel that rhythm. When you listen to the film, and it tells you what its rhythm is, it will tell you when it needs its silence. In the script writing, I could feel where I needed a moment of breath and silence, and I stayed pretty true to my script. I hope that rhythm, and that offset between silence and sound, is felt on-screen. 

ZL: I found myself nearly weeping by the film’s end when Fleetwood Mac’s “Beautiful Child” (plays). How did you and the sound design team arrive at that song for the film’s end?
SA: I owe it all to my husband, who is the film's musical supervisor. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of music, and so he was a great source to go to, and we have very similar tastes. It's not an unknown song, but it's not one of Fleetwood Mac’s really popular songs, and we thought it was a great fit. 

ZL: The Korean concept of “han” is quite prevalent in the film’s story as well; the characters all wrestle with it. What was it like to speak about that complex term on screen?
SA: I want to be careful with the way I speak about han because I know that it is very loaded, and I think you can define han in very different ways. I'll just talk about the specific way that I saw han. This film is about the language of love and how culture defines the language that we use to show love. In Korean culture, as in the case of many Asian cultures, sacrifice is the ultimate expression of love. Han plays a big part in that because our ancestors are very much alive in the present day through their sacrifices. We're reminded all the time about their sacrifices; it's a very beautiful thing, but at the same time, it can be burdensome. Han can be very burdensome in the sense that you are carrying a family, or even, in the case of some people's definition of it, a whole nation passes their sacrifices and pains down to generations. I wanted to touch upon han verbally, but I didn’t want to lecture about it. It was important to make it explicit for a moment because it’s what Korean culture is about; it’s so beautiful and also tricky.