The story of 30-year companionship between a 40-year-old ox and an octogenarian The Sound of the Cowbell Neither time nor civilization can go against their companionship. I’ll be with only you till the day I die! Just stay by my side! 80 years old, CHOI has an old ox that has worked for 30 years, and an ox aged no less than 40. However, there’s something special about the way Old CHOI treats this ox, which is so worn-out that it might drop dead any minute. The old man is single-mindedly focused on the ox, instinctively turning to the beast when he hears the cowbell even though he’s nearly deaf. One spring day, however, Old CHOI learns that his ox only has a year to live, which greatly troubles him.

Do oxen really relate to their owners? Seeing how oxen have become mere sources of meat nowadays, I wanted to prove the validity of this question. If that’s possible, I’ll try to show, through that empathy, the various dialogues, facial expressions, and even conflicts between the ox and its master. Not only that, but the movie will show in a single frame diverse relationships and stories, like in traditional Korean folk paintings, everything that happens when both external conditions (time and civilization) and other relationships (a young cow and Mrs. CHOI) that seek to sever this relationship of empathy between the ox and the old man intervene. Here, the sound of the cowbell is a medium that allows the ox and its nearly deaf master to communicate and to empathize with each other and will function as a heartbeat, serving as a symbol and a metaphor for their very aliveness. In other words, if and when the cowbell stops, that means that the mechanism for the empathy between the ox and the old man no longer works and that their relationship has come to its end. In addition, the sound of the cowbell will function as a spell that awakens the home villages, fathers, and oxen of our childhoods, now dormant in our memories like fossils. In that respect, this film will serve as yet another representation of the beautiful empathy between our oxen and our fathers and their moving dedication borne in the twilight of their lives, which may very well be the last of their kind in this age.

2008 제13회 부산국제영화제