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i am surrounded by the blessings of farewell
what if i just made a mydramalist account finally instead of talking to myself...
last week i watched all of move to heaven in 48 hours and sobbed my eyes out at least once per episode. as i said on twitter, it's like it was designed in a lab to personally destroy me. themes of parents wholeheartedly loving their children, an autistic character who is deeply empathetic, a person with dementia, a person in the closet, the full body-ache of grief.
if you're reading this without having seen it or if you've never heard of this drama, it's a ten episode series about an autistic young man (geuru) and his father, who run a "trauma cleaning" service. they clean up after the deceased and deliver the client's most precious belongings to their loved ones. when geuru's dad dies suddenly, he's left in the care of the fresh-out-of-prison uncle (sanggu) he's never even heard of. sanggu's filthy and brash, the opposite of careful and meticulous geuru. as they deal with the stories left behind by the homes they clean, sanggu is forced to face his own trauma and geuru begins to cope with the loss of his father.
move to heaven is full of heartbreak and characters who've suffered, but it never felt like trauma porn. it's predictable, but for me, knowing what to expect never lessened the impact of those moments. i loved tang junsang's portrayal of geuru. like most autistic characters you see in media, geuru is still given the "appealing" parts of autism (savant-like memory and recognition of it patterns), but you also see sensory meltdowns, scripting, and alternative communication for a non-speaking child. geuru is compared to a robot several times as an insult, but he isn't written as unfeeling or cold. he struggles to make sense of the neurotypical brain, sure, but he's distinctly caring. he doesn't follow in his father's footsteps solely out of the need to maintain his routine or out of a strong sense of justice—he cares about the stories of the deceased, letting their voices be known. giving everyone dignity and respect in their final move.
in the days since i finished the show, i keep thinking about geuru and his father and choking up. jeongwoo dies at the end of the first episode, but his spirit is all over the drama, both in flashbacks and in the reflection of the careful way he raised geuru. i keep thinking about the use of touch... geuru in the NICU squeezing jeongwoo's finger, baby geuru reaching out for jeongwoo, the two of them walking hand-in-hand along the beach, geuru reaching for the memory of his father's hand. geuru balking at the hug in episode one ("you said we shouldn't force things on people we love", jeongwoo raising him to express his boundaries!!) and geuru running back to hug the tree where his father was buried in episode ten. the love and comfort in their relationship will have me fucked up for the foreseeable future.
there are a lot of thoughts half-formed like geuru attaching the "precious child" pin to kim seonwoo's belongings, the way that every character is shown to be precious to someone, even the ones who died seemingly alone. sanggu and his relationship with sucheol and how he fought so hard against forming attachments because he thought he'd been abandoned. sanggu's heartbreaking missed connections with jeongwoo. geuru choosing sanggu.... but really i've cried like four times just writing this ramble so...
last week i watched all of move to heaven in 48 hours and sobbed my eyes out at least once per episode. as i said on twitter, it's like it was designed in a lab to personally destroy me. themes of parents wholeheartedly loving their children, an autistic character who is deeply empathetic, a person with dementia, a person in the closet, the full body-ache of grief.
if you're reading this without having seen it or if you've never heard of this drama, it's a ten episode series about an autistic young man (geuru) and his father, who run a "trauma cleaning" service. they clean up after the deceased and deliver the client's most precious belongings to their loved ones. when geuru's dad dies suddenly, he's left in the care of the fresh-out-of-prison uncle (sanggu) he's never even heard of. sanggu's filthy and brash, the opposite of careful and meticulous geuru. as they deal with the stories left behind by the homes they clean, sanggu is forced to face his own trauma and geuru begins to cope with the loss of his father.
move to heaven is full of heartbreak and characters who've suffered, but it never felt like trauma porn. it's predictable, but for me, knowing what to expect never lessened the impact of those moments. i loved tang junsang's portrayal of geuru. like most autistic characters you see in media, geuru is still given the "appealing" parts of autism (savant-like memory and recognition of it patterns), but you also see sensory meltdowns, scripting, and alternative communication for a non-speaking child. geuru is compared to a robot several times as an insult, but he isn't written as unfeeling or cold. he struggles to make sense of the neurotypical brain, sure, but he's distinctly caring. he doesn't follow in his father's footsteps solely out of the need to maintain his routine or out of a strong sense of justice—he cares about the stories of the deceased, letting their voices be known. giving everyone dignity and respect in their final move.
in the days since i finished the show, i keep thinking about geuru and his father and choking up. jeongwoo dies at the end of the first episode, but his spirit is all over the drama, both in flashbacks and in the reflection of the careful way he raised geuru. i keep thinking about the use of touch... geuru in the NICU squeezing jeongwoo's finger, baby geuru reaching out for jeongwoo, the two of them walking hand-in-hand along the beach, geuru reaching for the memory of his father's hand. geuru balking at the hug in episode one ("you said we shouldn't force things on people we love", jeongwoo raising him to express his boundaries!!) and geuru running back to hug the tree where his father was buried in episode ten. the love and comfort in their relationship will have me fucked up for the foreseeable future.
there are a lot of thoughts half-formed like geuru attaching the "precious child" pin to kim seonwoo's belongings, the way that every character is shown to be precious to someone, even the ones who died seemingly alone. sanggu and his relationship with sucheol and how he fought so hard against forming attachments because he thought he'd been abandoned. sanggu's heartbreaking missed connections with jeongwoo. geuru choosing sanggu.... but really i've cried like four times just writing this ramble so...