프로그램 노트

​Program Note 

This film evokes Albert Camus’s “The Guest,” a short story from his 1957 collection. Camus's work deals with the moral dilemma of a schoolteacher on a high plateau who is assigned to hand over an Arab prisoner during the Algerian War, exploring themes of human frailty and freedom. While the basic framework is similar, the focus is distinctly different. Whereas Camus poses questions by drawing in real-life events, Like Friend, Like Deer introduces a being with the face of a deer to reveal the absurd triangle between humanity and nature, humans and institutions, and institutions and nature in a fantastic and surreal manner.

The film’s deeply striking bird’s-eye views allow us to sense a sorrowful destiny: humans bound by institutions, nature bound by humans, and humans bound by that very nature. The schoolteacher shows kindness to his friend, the deer—who has become a prisoner after killing someone who harmed nature—yet life within the system reluctantly forces him to lead the deer to the execution ground. However, when the teacher leaves the deer at a fork in the road, its fate faces a crossroad between imprisonment and exile. What do the deer’s choice and its final steps convey to us? (HAN Changwook)​