From the very first frames of Stephanie Ahn’s tender drama “Bedford Park,” it’s evident that this is a film preoccupied with the ways we hold our heaviest traumas in the parts of our bodies we’d like to keep hidden.
There’s rarely a moment where cinematographer David McFarland’s camera isn’t lingering on some part of the corporeal that’s under siege, from rib cages marred with scar tissue to visages that rattle with shock after hearing harsh words. The lens moves serenely, intimately and without judgment, like a ghost in search of a companion, as we follow the rhythms of Audrey (Moon Choi) and Eli (Son Sukku), Korean-Americans who each wrestle with trying to assert their independence while navigating complicated family relationships.
After a car accident brings them into each other’s orbit — think of the elevator pitch for “Beef” but instead of the parties involved fighting, they begin to fall for each other — the two begin to develop a friendship. While Audrey is over at Eli’s place trying to settle for the damages, she experiences a miscarriage. Eli drives her to the hospital, and as a gesture of thanks, Audrey offers to drive Eli to his community college classes. The crux of the film’s drama is carried through these car rides and the result is a bittersweet romance that, most importantly, is not just a will they/won’t they story. This is a film about two people looking to be held, jagged edges and all, without cutting the people who are doing the embracing.
One of the great beauties of “Bedford Park” is how Ahn’s direction and McFarland’s aforementioned camera work stems from an inherent trust in their actors. While there are some scenes of exposition, usually done over food (as much as this film tugs at heartstrings, it also excites the stomach), for the most part, the camera is often stationary, bearing witness to Eli’s and Audrey’s daily rhythms, and using those moments of documentation as a way to understand their inner thoughts. Choi and Sukku understand the assignment, knowing that we learn as much about Eli from him having a heart-to-heart with his mother as we do from seeing him eat peanut butter and Nutella by scraping his whole hand in the jars, no utensils to be found.
Choi, for her part, is a revelation, constantly embodying new layers of Audrey’s angst without settling for cheap rage. Audrey is someone whose outbursts of anger feel like invitations for connection; it’s evident she’s cracking under the weight of the abuse she received from her parents, particularly her father, and wrestles with reconciling who she is with the daughter her parents want her to be. Her struggles nestle at that all too relatable agony: when your parents never apologized for what they’ve done, but presently lack the faculties for reconciliation.
For dabbling in such universal themes, “Bedford Park” is also refreshingly and invitationally specific, centering its ideas around the Korean concept of han. As described in the film, it’s a type of trauma that’s passed down between generations, one that never goes away. All the characters are looking for vessels to hold their han; as the film’s narrative develops, it inquires that perhaps it’s less about trying to get rid of our pain and more about finding people with whom you can hold it.
In one scene that encapsulates the film’s power to mine beauty out of normalcy, Eli and Audrey are conversing with Eli’s former wrestling coach, who praises Eli’s prowess, saying, “he makes wrestling look like art.” Ahn likewise takes the wrestlings of the soul, the unexpressed longings, the turmoil we feel between love and obligation, and crafts them into great art.
Her film reminded me of the words Pope Leo XIV said in his “Encounter with the World of Cinema” address, stating, “The logic of algorithms tends to repeat what ‘works,’ but art opens up what is possible … When cinema is authentic, it does not merely console, but challenges.” While “Bedford Park” will undoubtedly make many feel seen through its culturally specific story, this is not a film content to rest on the laurels of reflection. It asks us to consider whether we might imagine a version of our lives where we don’t have to be defined by our traumas, and to embrace the serendipity of something as disruptive as a car accident.
This is a deeply sincere film, one that avoids the cringe of melodrama by rooting all that transpires, the quiet and vociferous, elation and tragedy, in the lives of its characters. We never deal with one crisis at a time; “Bedford Park” understands this, and it reminds us to hold close to those who will hold us in those storms.
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