“The Birth of Resonance” is the full-length debut of the documentarian Lee Jeong-jun. The movie premiered at the 2020 DMZ International Documentary Film Festival where it won the Asian Development Foundation Award.
“The Birth of Resonance” is screening at the Florence Korea Film Fest
The documentary follows the work of the master drum-maker and Gyeonggi Intangible Cultural Asset No. 30, Lim Seonbin. Though he makes traditional drums of all types, his favorite ones are the bass drums known as buk. This love for the drums comes both from his master, who saved his life through teaching him how to make drums, but also from the memories of his family's drum and the feeling of his mother's embrace. Faced with the possibility of losing for good his already ailing hearing, he ventures to do what he has always dreamt of – making a great buk that echoes the sound of his home.
Lee Jeong-jun manages to touch upon numerous themes of importance for contemporary Korean society in his documentary about the quiet master craftsman. First among them is the seeming disinterest in the country towards traditional culture and its preservation. Though an Intangible Cultural Asset, Lim and his family are not particularly well-off, quite the contrary. They work and live in a somewhat dilapidated warehouse, churning out skins for drums and bass drums. He barely has the time to work on his art and create what he has been putting off for decades – a huge masterwork that carries the sound of his childhood.
The traditions are not preserved in another sense, too, for there is no new blood for Lim to pass his knowledge to. Save for his only disciple, his son, all other workers in the atelier are either of Seonbin's age or older. And this is not something specific to his workshop, as a scene from an exhibition of traditional art shows. Both the government and the younger generations do not seem to be particularly interested in the traditional arts in general. And why should they, when as Lim himself says, the work is extremely difficult and the pay – close to nil. Yet, he still does it, because he seems to have reached a level of mastery, enlightenment even, in which he finds peace and contentment in his work. However, it is a type of contentment that is mixed with a never-ending quest for perfection, for finding that elusive drum sound he remembers from his youth.
Lee's film touches upon differences between the generations as shown through the starkly different attitudes towards drum-making between Lim and his son-cum-disciple. The two seem not to be able to see eye to eye about anything. The older artist is a traditionalist who doesn't really care about money or fame, whereas his son sees himself as an innovator and entrepreneur who tells openly numerous times he wants to sell everything. In this, we see the differing priorities between the generations – the older one aims at perfection and preservation of the past, while the younger one seems to value money more than anything. And still, despite their differences, the two work in a surprising unison, giving the viewer a little hope for the future of the craft.
Lim's craftsmanship is caught with splendid dynamism by Lee Jeong-jun. We see the master pull and sew drum skins, nail and glue parts of drums, and fine-tune the final products to a degree that's almost imperceptible for anyone but himself. There is a scene towards the end when he tunes the huge drum he's been working on which would look incredibly boring in the hands of a director, but here it is imbued with a sense of tension akin to that of an action film.
With its interesting and informative subject matter and beautiful visuals, “The Birth of Resonance” is a worth seeing by everyone interested in traditional culture and its preservation in the contemporary world.
