Notes:

1. “My name is…Sungwoo. Yoo SungWoo.”

In kdramas, whenever the lead character gets a new hairstyle, it’s to show that he encountered a personal crisis and his outlook and direction in life went through a 180 degree reversal. In the Catholic tradition, the equivalent of this new hairstyle trope is acquiring a new name. Whenever a biblical person was renamed, like, Abram to Abraham and Simon to Peter, the new name signaled his unique role in the salvation of mankind.

That is how I understood the discovery of Angel Dan’s human name. To me, it was a significant moment when he discovered his name and told YeonSeo his birth name. For one, guardian angels (and he’s YS’s guardian angel, right?) are supposed to be anonymous and it’s been discouraged to name guardian angels.

You might ask, “Why?”

Well, when you name things, you exercise authority over them. When God created light, He called light “day,” and darkness, “night.”  He also also created the vault, dry land and water, and called them, “heaven,” “earth,” and “seas.” That’s the biblical reason. But it’s also true for parents naming their child, “Charity” because they want the child to be endowed the grace of kindness or “Alistair Harold Randolph Wallace Custis III” because those names have been handed for generations in the family. And it’s also true when I named this blog “Bitchesoverdramas” and Steve Jobs named his company “Apple” because he thought the name was “fun, spirited and not intimidating.” lol.

The point here is creators get to name their creation. When you name your guardian angel, you’re claiming a celestial being that belongs to God.

The other reason this moment is significant is the reversal I told you about. When Angel Dan revealed his name to YeonSeo, he wasn’t only giving her power to summon him anytime, anywhere, but he’s allowing her to get to know him and his history, and to enter fully into his life. Calling someone by his real name is deeply personal. (That’s why most of you only know me by my alias, “packmule3” or my moniker, “bitch.” lol)

Remember? YeonSeo had been dismayed that she didn’t know a single thing about him.

“How can I not know anything about him? Where he was born, who his parents are, how he grew up, what he dreamed of becoming.”

It seems then that God answered her unvoiced prayer in church to get to know Angel Dan’s past.

2. Dutch Tilt

I mentioned Dutch tilts in a previous post, right? I said it’s to add to the tension and conflict. Since the viewers are seeing tilted objects and askew landscape, their minds register that something in the scene they’re viewing is wrong and amiss. They’re alerted that things are not the way they appear.

The director used this camera technique extensively in these last episodes that my eyes have become accustomed to it. Almost all the scenes are off-kilter and that tells me that plot is reaching the crux of the story. In fact, when you look at the camera shots involving just two people in the camera, they’re almost all “Dutch Angles” except for a couple of scenes (and those “normal” scenes are intriguing). To me, that means that the two characters disturb each other. Then, in those camera shots focusing on a close-up of a solitary character, the tilted angles tell me that there’s internal conflict going on.

Here I took screenshots because it’s easier to show by examples.

Here, Angel Dan is praying, “I think I lost my path. I feel like I’m at a closed road. Wherever I go, she’s there. I…Where am I supposed to go?” The angled view emphasizes his troubled mental state. He’s doubting and questioning everything.

The Dutch tilt works for the next scene, too. At this scene, Dan was questioning the head angel’s actions at the sanatorium. “Don’t talk to me. I don’t want to talk to you.” Then, he quoted biblical passage, “For those who do not ask for mercy, shall receive judgment without mercy” because in his view, the head angel did wrong to separate angel Noel from the Old Lady. He also despised the head angel for scaring him to flee from YeonSeo. “If you were trying to scare me, you did a good job. I ran away after getting scared of what you did.”  Thus, when the head angel warned him to stay away, not only from YeonSeo, but also from KangWoo, Dan wasn’t in the mood to listen.

Next, this mother-daughter scene also uses the Dutch tilt.

The bad aunt realized that her daughter Luna had a hand in the accidents. Luna was capable of cold-blooded murder and this slanted shot of Luna slicing the fruit was ominous. The bad aunt realized taht she had spawned an evil child.

I think she didn’t mind getting her own hands dirty in the fight for Fantasia, but she wanted her children to be unstained and unsullied. She placated Luna, “You’ve always been a good child ever since you were young. I’m thankful for that. I couldn’t take care of you while helping Nina learn ballet and managing Fantasia.” Then, she told her, “Luna, I only want you to see good things and to go to nice places. Mom will do the rest.”

Luna then replied, “You know me. I hate dirty things.”

The Dutch tilt of the camera here indicates that she’s lying…and that she’s mentally unhinged. Three times in this hour, we hear Luna’s inner thoughts expressed in a sibilant hiss. The sound of her hissing was probably meant to evoke the image of a whispering devil.

The first time she hissed. She caught the Four-Eyed Minion about to blow the whistle on Mr. Jo’s car accident and murder.

Second time. She found her mother snooping at her desk.

And here. She knew her mother was beginning to suspect her as she stood up to get another apple to cut.

lol. With all that hissing, it was a good time for the Greedy Aunt to reflect on Dan’s words to her in Episode 12. “Greed gives birth to sin. When it’s full-grown, it gives birth to death.”

Literally, she’s given birth to a murderer.

This biblical passage is commonly interpreted as a warning that the temptation to sin comes from selfishness. It’s never God who pushes and manipulates us to sin, like what Kangwoo claimed in Episode 15.

He told the head angel, “You look down on the struggling humans and manipulate them with a snap of your fingers. That makes you feel like the omniscient and omnipotent god. You’re mistaken.”  What he’s actually saying here is that the head angel’s condescending and manipulative behavior toward humans is simply mirroring a condescending and manipulative God.

Dan’s biblical quotation is a reminder that selfishness causes humans to sin. We sin when we love ourselves above all else, and when we covet things that aren’t ours.  The aunt’s desire to gain control of Fantasia and her non-stop scheming behind-the-scene have conditioned the daughter to covet the same thing and stop at nothing, including murder.

3. More Dutch Tilts

FYI. Even though it’s called “Dutch” tilt, the Dutch people didn’t have anything to do with its creation. The German expressionist movement created and popularized this technique. However, the German word for the German people is “Deutsch” which sounded and looked like Dutch. lol.

Here are more examples of the Dutch angles used at the critical moments in this episode.

These are the scenes that were shot “normal.”  What you suppose the director was trying to say in these scenes? My guess is as good as yours.

And take a look at their parting scene. I was surprised to see that this was filmed in normal view.

Noteworthy: the contrasting shots of their inner monologues. Hers was filmed with tilted camera and his wasn’t.

She stopped him from leaving and told that, this time, she’d go first so she wouldn’t have to watch him abandon her again. “I’ll go first. I won’t see…you leave ever again. It was always you who ran away first at home and at the park. Not this time. Remember this well. I’m leaving you. It’s you who will be left alone.”

I liked this moment. The point here is that should he ever become lonely in the future, he had nobody to blame but himself because he let her walk away.

Then, as she walked away, she was convincing herself, “He didn’t exist. He never existed. Although he existed, (I’ll) pretend that he never existed. That’s what I’ll do. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.”  The camera was tilted.

Meanwhile, he took his anger out on the tree. “Say something to me. What do you want me to do?”

The camera wasn’t tilted.

Considering he was getting frustrated at God’s seeming silence, this scene was filmed straight-up. To me, this wasn’t a mental lapse on the director’s part. I’d like to think that the message here is that, at moments like this, when Dan couldn’t “feel” God’s presence, God’s wisdom, and God’s peace, God was actually right there beside him. And in some primal level, Dan knew this. Hence, he wasn’t filmed off-centered and the world around him remained upright and steady.

He reiterated his certitude on a God who had a unique plan and “mission” for him on his way to the island. He refused to blame God. He said, “What is the providence for the one who refuses to blame Him till the very end? Does He have a plan for me that He made since the beginning of time?”

I especially like this shot. The hazy outline of the island in the background is symbolic of God’s nebulous plan for him. It’s always right there although sometimes it isn’t clearly visible.

And in my opinion, going back to the beginning is the right thing to do for his discernment.  In Catholic tradition, this is what we’d call a spiritual retreat.

 

I’ll have to end here and continue with my thoughts on “Giselle” later. I’ve to go to the office now. 🙂