In Sarajin, Justin Kim WooSŏk meticulously displays the intimate sorrows of climate change as an immigrant Korean family is forced to leave their home alongside Alaska’s snow crabs.
DongSu Kim (Jongman Kim) has never attended a Shell shareholders meeting. Or voted in Congress about environmental bills. He is a fisherman. He fishes snow crabs in Alaska, gets paid for his work, and buys food for his partner Jaejeong (Taehee Kim) and their daughter Gaeun (Hailey Soomin Lee). But what happens when the planet changes so drastically that there is no more room for species like the snow crab?
Sarajin, pronounced sa-la-jin, is based on the Korean word for disappearing. And like the snow crabs, DongSu witnesses his life fading before his eyes. The short accompanies him as he realizes what his partner has predicted from the start: It’s time to leave this place. Climate change has made their way of living disappear. They can’t survive there anymore. It’s a second migration for this Korean immigrant family.
This film disguises itself as a simple tale of an immigrant fishing family dealing with the consequences of climate change, but between those two contemporary themes, there’s nothing simple. An immigrant fishing family forced to migrate once again is one of the painful human costs of climate change. While the media and politics focus on the groundbreaking proportions of this issue (usually without contributing to any feasible solution), WooSŏk offers an intimate story that reminds us of how much this problem is part of our lives.
WooSŏk delicately focuses on the sorrow imposed by issues far beyond our grasp, high-level decisions taken decades ago that have led to families like Kim leaving behind what they know and finding a new home. I can’t help but think we’re much like the snow crabs from Alaska, disappearing, too.
With a meticulous script written by Ki Jin Kim and WooSŏk, not a single word in this movie goes to waste. The writing is aware of its pace and offers crucial high notes that harmonize with the natural beauty of Alaska and the silence in the Kim family’s future plans. “The ocean will never fail us,” DongSu repeats stoically. But the heartbreak in Sarajin lies in the implication that the ocean hasn’t failed us—humankind has failed itself.
If it sounds like this theme has a powerful impact on me, it’s because it has. Climate justice has been a particular cause to me, and I have established high standards for visual formats that tackle this theme because I believe in the power of cinema to connect us when politics fail to do so. This short tells a refreshingly intimate climate story highlighting how deeply connected the human and environmental costs are. Climate change unites our planet in the worst of ways, but stories like this remind us of the planetary connection we share in the first place.
Sarajin doesn’t ask too much of us – only to pay attention to climate stories and to immigrants like the Kim family, who are already paying the cost of a global problem not caused by them. It urges us to sit, listen and feel. Let’s do exactly that.
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