Resilience

Hosu Kim reviews Resilience, directed by Tammy Chu (2010, 75 minutes)

Resilience is a documentary film about the reunion and subsequent relationship between Brent Beesley, a Korean-born adoptee, and Noh Myung-Ja, his Korean mother. As an adopted child growing up in South Dakota, Brent had occasionally wondered, “What if I lived in South Korea with my biological family?” but never felt a particularly strong drive to search for his Korean family. It was not until much later, sparked by his daughter’s congenital heart condition, that Brent began searching for the answers to the question: “Why was I adopted?” Brent searched for four or five years without yielding any results, but was then connected to Global Overseas Adoptees’ Link, a Korean adoptee organization based in Seoul, Korea. This organization helped him to locate his birth mother, and a few months after finding her, Brent set off for Korea for the first time since he left as a child. His reunion with his birth mother was arranged by “Beautiful Pardon,” a family search show produced by KBS, a major South Korean broadcasting company. It was through this televised reunion show that Brent learned of the circumstances surrounding his adoption and was able to meet his birth mother, Myung-Ja.

Examining the development of the ensuing relationship between Brent and Myung-Ja over the next four years, Resilience fleshes out the life stories and experiences of both parties and their reflections on the reunion and afterwards. It turns out that Myung-Ja was not involved in the decision to give Sungwook (Brent’s given name) up for adoption at all. Estranged from her husband due to his gambling addiction and neglect, Myung-Ja left Sungwook with her father while she searched for work. When she returned, she found that her family had placed her child up for adoption. Without access to any information about where he had been placed, Myung-Ja lived under the assumption that he had been adopted to a wealthy family in Korea. In recollecting that period after separation, Myung-Ja cried and said, “There was no reason for me to live. I lived recklessly because I did not really want to live.”

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