Too Young to Die

Director Park JinPyo first met the 73yearold Park ChiGyu and his 72yearold partner Lee SunYe while making a TV documentary last year. Struck by their youthfulness, the strength of their feelings for each other and, not least, by their remarkably active sex life, he proposed filming this docudrama, in which they reenact their first meeting, their current lives together and the high and low points of their relationship. The film (shot as simply as possible on DV) deliberately avoids going into their personal histories and backgrounds (both have outlived their spouses and both have grandchildren), the better to focus on their intense commitment to each other and their fears of being apart.Only one episode in the film is pure documentary: the sequence at a folksong competition, which they win with a performance of `The Song of Youth’. But all of it feels entirely truthful, including the charmingly uninhibited scenes on the futon. The director says that making it has helped him lose his fear of growing old. Tony Rayns