Let’s turn back to the pages where you wrote several refulgent goals for the new year. Acquiring certifications, reading books, setting aside money for the future… how many of these did you achieve so far? Still, three months have left, but failure is so nerve-wracking. if we fail. Moreover, it’s autumn, it’s September! The season of harvest and last semester of this year are just around the corner; maybe some of your friends uploaded fresh Instagram posts that she is successfully preparing new activities and strengthened resolution for the rest of the year. However, someone still may collapse under the burnout from the previous semester and just want to seize a delightful vacation. The 2nd Clapperboard can create a cozy bed for people who want to fully recharge. It doesn’t matter if you are about to hit rock bottom, or already hit it. Just enjoy two movies in which you can sympathize with the characters and yourself. It’s okay to mess up or sob loudly; after the film, you will get fresh energy to brace yourself and tidy up.

 1. The Edge of Seventeen, directed by Kelly Fremon Craig * available on Netflix

Being seventeen is quite tough. Teenagers who are passing seventeen are literally being located at the sharp edge to form their personalities; everything bothers and exasperates them. The main character of the movie, Nadine is passing especially rough adolescence; her family doesn’t care for her as much as she wants, they even load her with a huge inferiority complex. School life is miserable, too; her only friend falls in love with Nadine’s horrible brother, and unfortunately, Nadine’s relationship doesn’t work out. As the story unfolds, she wanders around people who she wishes to receive warm affection from and runs into shameful troubles. Even if the solutions were not wise enough, ordinary days and serenity finally returned to Nadine.

At least once in a life, everyone is tied up in knots; emotions fiercely gust into the mind, and things get complicated and twisted. The film merely brought the age of seventeen to represent a chaotic chapter of our life; at any age, any situation, any time we repeatedly face deep anguish. Nonetheless, as Nadine and all of us did, the tempest will eventually die down, and all clouds have a silver lining. 

2. Lucky Chan-sil, directed by Kim Cho-hee * available on Netflix

Going through midlife is as harsh as much as adolescence. Despite our best efforts to avoid misfortunes, they visit us. Chan-sil, the protagonist of Lucky Chan-sil, had been a diligent and amiable movie producer. One day, she was fired, as her faithful director unexpectedly died at the dinner party with fellow crew members. She had to not only overcome inconsolable grief of the trusted colleague but find a way to make living. Her situation is no different to Nadine; maybe she is at the much urgent and vast edge of the life. Not at all daunted, our gallant Chan-sil paves the way to a new life: moving to a new place where a warmhearted landlady and a ghost await, working as a housekeeper, and carefully authoring her first scenario. When a decent job and a serene family are allowed to everyone except her, what Chan-sil does is to stand alone, rather than sprint for others. What makes the film even more filled with bonhomie is behind the scenes; without Yoon Yeo-jung, even the synopsis for Lucky Chan-sil wouldn’t see the light nor meet the audiences. She encouraged the director Kim Cho-hee when she confronted forlornness because of unemployment as a movie producer, just like Chan-sil from the movie. The heartfelt consolation from Yoon pushed her to create an autobiographical movie; the solidarity between two women reenacted through the relationship between Chan-sil and Grandmother, which Yoon actually played in the movie. Amity and vitality between women rise inside and outside the movie.

By Kim Hyeyeong deputy editor in chief