Pavane: The Dis(illusion) of Love

“Love is an illusion. An illusion that your beloved is unlike the rest. An illusion that the feeling will last forever.” – Park Yo Han

A constant and recurring theme in the movie Pavane is how we are constantly being reminded, particularly by Yohan, that love is an illusion. That love is of something that is fake, no matter how real it may seem, and that in the end all will become void and meaningless. As if love is something that fools us into thinking that our partner is different from the other people you have met before, that these feelings are real and thus will last, and that you will eventually get your happy ending.

The movie opened with a love story that may seem beautiful and sweet, an unknown man of seemingly upper class takes an interest in a woman society may deem ordinary, and he asks her to marry him — a happy ending!

But as Yohan proclaimed, it is indeed an illusion! The man who turned out to be a popular actor left her and their son for another woman, and thus we were introduced to the first illusion of love.

Fast forward, we were then made to understand why exactly Yohan made such a bold argument. Like the genius storyteller that he is, he tells a fairylike story, of a woman who fell in love with a man, leading to her becoming a mistress and bearing an illegitimate son. This story ends in a tragic end in which the woman ended her own life and left the son all alone — and the son is no other than Yohan himself! Is it even surprising now that he believes love is an illusion? For he himself was born as a result from that illusion, and thus was doomed with a life of sadness and loneliness. He believes love is an illusion because that is all he ever knows.

Into this concept, comes Gyeong Rok, the son of the woman and the actor that left them at the beginning of the movie. Now, despite his familial situation that is not ideal, his love for Mi Jeong was raw and real. It was pure and of good intentions. But as time went by he and Mi Jeong started to live separate lives with Gyeong Rok focusing on his dancing school and Mi Jeong with her own work and family. As they grow apart in the latter part of the movie and as he got closer with Sera, my first thought was: will he leave her just like his father and prove to us ultimately that love really is just an illusion? That his love for Mi Jeong was only a temporary illusion? That he will leave her for another woman just like his father did?

Pavane did a great job in keeping us on our toes on that aspect. With the idea of illusion itself that has been fed to the viewers, the history of his familial past especially on what his father did, and the slow pace of positive results in their relationship, we would almost believe that it was indeed all an illusion!

But what I love about Pavane is the beautiful storytelling of how we as humans can break a cycle, that we can change and become better, and that we can fight for what we want — may it be the life that we want, the people we want to be with, or the dream that we strive for. Thus, comes the final beautiful scene between Gyeong Rok & Mi Jeong, and in the end we know that their love was real, that we can fight for the love that we want, and that we don’t have to repeat the same cycle that our parents or our past selves has reinforced upon us.
In the end, Pavane shows us that love can be real, and not just a passing temporary illusion. That we can fight until the end for the love we have for each other, may it be love such as Gyeong Rok & Mi Jeong, or in friendships such as that of Gyeong Rok, Yo Han, & Mi Jeong. Despite the tragic end for Gyeong Rok, we can see how he fought even until the very end for that love, that he fought as well for Yo han and his recovery, and how all three of them fought for themselves and their dreams.