HOME_Script(New - female character)
1. INT. LIVING ROOM, HOME, DAMASCUS, MD - LATE NIGHT
The narration comes with the MELANCHOLIC MUSIC in black.
‘I’ (V.O)
I’m homeless.
I’ve lost my home for many years.
But, I still dream about it,
even though it fades away day by day.
In the empty living room, the warm, orange lamp
lights in the dark. The dim light waves in a stop motion
movement, and it stops slowly when it comes to the old
family picture. In the picture, a little Asian girl
‘I’ with no facial expression sits with her American
parents who seems very happy with the girl. The picture
gets more orangish and it gets dimmer like a burning
paper.
‘I’ (V.O)
I sometimes wake up and go downstairs.
I see the lamp light always turning on.
I don’t know why, but I like it.
The dim light in the dark,
Somehow lonesome, but feels comforting like a
baby in the womb.
(PAUSE)
Maybe… my color of loneliness is orange.
The dim light fades out, the title HOME shows in black
with BABY HEARTBEAT SOUND.
2. INT. LIVING ROOM, HOME, DAMASCUS, MD – DAY
(SUMMER, 1990 DAMASCUS, MARYLAND - SUBTITLED)
In the same living room, the ‘I’s family is shown.
Daniel (dad, 50), Christie (mom, 40), and Ian (older
brother(13) play with ‘I’(8).
Daniel records ‘I’ playing with Ian with his small hi8
Camcorder. ‘I’ looks at the camera curiously.
Daniel walks to ‘I’ and hands the camera to her.
The image of Daniel and Christie is shown in ‘I’s point
of view.
‘I’ (V.O)
This is my family.
I was adopted when I was five.
Unlike other adoptees, I remember the day I was
adopted because it was the day I cried the most
in my life.
3. EXT. HOME LAWN, DAMASCUS, MD – DAY
In a small lawn, ‘I’ and Ian bicker over a bicycle.
As they bicker more, Christie comes to them and
lets ‘I’ take the bicycle instead of Ian. Ian runs
inside the house. The door closes slowly with a stop
motion effect.
‘I’ (V.O)
One day, I fought with my brother for the bike.
(PAUSE)
That night, my brother came to my room and gave
me an old package.
He said, “Go back to your home”.
MELANCHOLIC MUSIC with baby’s BABBLING SOUND comes.
The old pictures of baby ‘I’ are shown in order of age.
‘I’ (V.O)
In the package, I found an old passport and
several pictures of a baby.
(PAUSE)
I don’t remember much about that night, but I
became more quiet from that day on.
‘I’ playing with several pieces of puzzle is shown.
4. EXT. FORK UNION MILITARY ACADEMY, VIRGINIA – DAY
A bunch of children in uniform doing close order drill
on the ground is shown. In a group of white girls, ‘I’
looks at other children nervously.
‘I’ (V.O)
As I didn’t talk much and being shy in my class,
my parents decided to send me to the military
academy in Virginia as my dad’s friend teaches in
there.
I didn’t want to leave them, but I did.
Because I was afraid to be abandoned.
I thought I would leave them before they
leave me.
5. INT. EMPTY DORM ROOM, VIRGINIA – DAY
The empty dorm room is shown for a moment.
‘I’ (V.O)
I was alone always.
I didn’t talk to them; they didn’t talk to me.
I always sat in my room and looked at the
people over the window.
Mom keeps telling me that I look like my dad.
I kind of have a weird reaction to this. Being an
interracial adoptee means I have never looked
like my family.
I know looking like your family is important…
but I don’t think anyone can deny that there are
emotions when you can look at your child and see
your features in them.
But that whole connection is still missing
somewhat.
Next to the neat bed, the bright sunlight comes through
the old window. The light gets glowish as a phone
conversation starts.
INTERCUT - PHONE CONVERSATION
Christie
I don’t know how to explain this…
I think dad and I don’t love anymore,
But, you know we still love you.
I know this will be a hard time for all of us,
But, it’s going to be ok…
(PHONE HANGING UP SOUND)
6. INT. MULTICULTURAL HUMAN SERVICES CENTER, VIRGINIA – DAY
The experimental image of injecting medicine and
dissolving pills in different size and color is
overlapped with MELANCHOLIC MUSIC.
The explanation of ‘Selective Mutism’ is shown on the
image of laboratory mice in the cage.
(Selective Mutism: An anxiety disorder in which a
person who is normally capable of speech does not speak
in specific situations or to specific people. Selective
mutism usually co-exists with shyness or social anxiety)
‘I’ (V.O)
Selective Mutism, that’s what the psychiatrist
wrote on my record. The school sent me to speech
therapy, and they treated me like a laboratory
mouse in a cage. I wanted to go back home, but
it seemed that my parents didn’t want me come
back to their places as they separated.
I felt I was abandoned again.
A mouse running around in a circle is shown in a stop
motion movement.
7. INT. THERAPY ROOM, VIRGINIA – DAY
An Asian teenager boy sitting in the hallway is shown.
The boy has very short hair and wears round metal
glasses. He gazes the sunlight over the entrance faintly.
‘I’ (V.O)
I met one guy from the center.
We didn’t talk each other, but we knew we were in
the same world, the world of isolation.
Is he an adoptee like me?
What he’s looking at…?
We sometimes looked at each other.
No communication at all.
But, we both felt we were drifting to somewhere
we didn’t want to go.
The blurry images of injecting medicine and dissolving
pills comes again in a fast motion movement with
EXPERIMENTAL NOISE. THE NOISE GETS LOUDER when the
drawings are shown and THE NOISE STOPS SUDDENLY at the
last drawing.
‘I’ (V.O)
These are pictures we drew from the program.
In the last drawing, a man hangs himself by the neck.
The man has a long tongue, and it seems like he wants to
say something.
‘I’ (V.O)
The last one I drew with my friend the day before
I left the center.
I’m afraid to call him ‘friend’ because I’m
afraid of you, and you will blame me for being a
friend of my friend.
8. INT. CHO, SEUNG-HUI CONFESSION VIDEO, VIRGINIA – DAY
Several videos Cho sent to NBC News are shown.
CHO
Do you think I wanted to do this?
Do you think I ever dreamed of dying like this?
In a million years, I didn’t want to do this.
You have vandalized my heart,
raped my soul and torched my conscience.
You thought it was one pathetic boy's life you
were extinguishing.
Do you know what it feels to be spit on your face
and to have trash shoved down your throat?
Do you know what it feels like to dig your own
grave? Do you know what it feels like to have
throat slashed from ear to ear?
Do you know what it feels like to be torched
alive? Do you know what it feels like to be
humiliated and be impaled on a cross and left to
bleed to death for your amusement?
You have never felt a single ounce of pain your
whole life. Did you want to inject as much misery
in our lives as you can just because you can?
You had a hundred billion chances and ways to
have avoided today. But you decided to spill my
blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me
only one option.
I didn't have to do this. I could have left.
I could have fled.
But no, I will no longer run.
This is it. There is where it all ends.
End of the road. What a life it was. Some life.
The video caught on the cell phone of a Virginia Tech
student during the shootings is shown in a slow motion
movement.
‘I’ (V.O)
A few years later, he killed thirty-two people.
Why would he do that?
Was he really autistic?
What was so painful for him to kill everyone like
that? What was so painful that he shot his face?
I was afraid.
I was afraid of you.
I was afraid of me because I came from the same
world, the world of isolation… the desert island
I only could live.
Where did I go wrong…?
How long should I live in this locked castle?
The several images of orangish circles move slowly like
cell division in a microscope slide. The orangish light
gets brighter and the old picture in the package is
shown with the MYSTERIOUS SOUND. In the picture, a
young Asian couple holds a baby.
The baby cracks a smile, but the couple smiles
Faintly, and it feels somehow sad.
The baby‘s face gets slowly closer in a wavy
movement.
‘I’ (V.O)
This is the last picture in the package my
brother gave me from that night.
Are they my real parents?
Why did they abandon me?
Was I happy at that time?
Can I smile again if I leave here…?
9. INT. BROKEN BRIDGE, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA – DAY
The broken bridge at Berkeley Marina is shown. Under the
bridge, a paper boat floating on the water is shown. It
stays for a moment then trembles as the wind
blows.
10. EXT. SUNG-SU BRIDGE, SEOUL - DAY
THE NOISE OF PASSING CARS AND WIND comes in black and
the image of the gray bridge is shown.
The gray sky filled with smoke makes a dreary
atmosphere. Cars pass on the freeway under the bridge
with TRAFFIC NOISE. The city’s canopy of buildings is
shown beyond a gray bar on the bridge. The subway train
passes over the bridge. At the same time, a man rides a
bicycle on a riverside path alone.
‘I’ (V.O)
Welcome home, they say.
But, it isn’t home anymore, it hasn’t been for
many years.
I’m a stranger.
On the way home, the road seems so long.
I walk this road by following the train whistle.
One step then another...
Can I get there if I cross the fence of
memory?
11. EXT. SUBWAY STATION, SEOUL – DAY
A mass of people pass on a subway gate.
The mass of people in different colors and styles of
hair and clothes walks on the underground passage with
FEET TAPPING NOISE. TRAIN BOARDING ANNOUNCEMENT comes;
they run into the packed train.
‘I’ (V.O)
Where am I?
Who are these people?
Where are they running off to, so busy?
I stop and say hi to them,
But no one stops; no one looks at me.
They only go their own ways.
The empty platform appears. In the middle of the
platform, a small white screen flickers.
‘I’ (V.O)
Without my consent,
the train named 'time' passes me and leaves.
I’m left alone on the empty platform.
The flickering screen over there only confirms my
existence.
12. INT. SUBWAY TRAIN, SEOUL – DAY
In the subway train, few people sit on benches. As a
train arrives at the station, the image of the ‘I’ with
a camera is briefly reflected.
‘I’ (V.O)
Even the sound of the air is cold in this place.
What am I waiting for, for such a long time?
I see the woman holding a camera over the window.
I feel so awkward with her...
The people with impassive faces in the train are
shown. Some people walk toward the ‘I’.
Among them, a girl with a displeased look looking at
the ‘I’s camera is shown in the ‘I’s POV.
The image of the girl stops when she passes the ‘I’
‘I’ (V.O)
I see many passengers here.
They seem tired and lonesome on their way home.
Do they have a home?
The real home that people are always missing.
I couldn’t find it.
I try to talk to them to ask where the train
goes, but no one wants to talk.
13. EXT. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, SEOUL - DAY
Dust and sand waft on a large school ground in the
winter. The trees are bare of their leaves and little
children play with the sand after school.
The sky is blue, without clouds, and THE NOISE OF THE
WIND rings in their ears.
A boy calls his friends, and they run together. A dust
cloud follows the footsteps of the running children.
A thin branch shivers slowly and a leaf hanging on the
branch falls down slightly. Wind pushes out the leaf
with dust.
The little girl hunkered down with an expressionless
face sees the flying leaf on the empty ground.
‘I’ (V.O)
This is the place I was found.
Everything was not real, even my name and my
Birthday.
The wind blew and I opened my eyes.
Strange, yet somehow familiar whispers tickled my
ears and I took a step towards the sound.
14. EXT. SUNG-SU BRIDGE, SEOUL – NIGHT
A man riding a bicycle under the bridge is shown.
An arrow shaped light circling the bridge is shown in a
slow motion effect.
‘I’ (V.O)
I feel thirsty…
I might have walked too long…
Thirsty between the irretrievable road I have
walked and the invisible road I will walk…
If I untie and untie these rings of memory,
can I arrive home? Can I live forever?
15. EXT. SUBWAY PLATFORM, SEOUL – NIGHT
The orange-ish headlight of the running train comes from
the tunnel with an ECHOING NOISE. The ‘I’s reflection
is scattered on the windows of the passing train in
stop motion movement. The passing train overlaps to the
BART train passing on the Powell Station in the city of
San Francisco.
‘I’ (V.O)
From some place and time, my time has been
stopped.
Time fed me, and simultaneously, it unshaped my
figure.
I feel like I became invisible.
I am only the protagonist in my own time and
space.
I’m just a stranger among the strangers here.
I’m wondering about the city,
the city of isolation…
the city for the strangers.
16. INT. SUBWAY TRAIN, SF – DAY
The people in the BART train are shown accompanied by
the SUBWAY ROUTE ANNOUNCEMENT.
Some talk on the phone, some send texts, some sit and
work on their laptops, and others put on earphones and
listen to music. As a young woman plugs in her earphones,
the AMBIENT NOISE turns to MUTE.
In the MUTE, all of the people look tired and isolated.
Their expressionless faces quiver on the window
reflection.
‘I’ (V.O)
Look at these tiny pieces of life and culture.
The complexity of the world, with its vast
variety of people.
Their loneliness is buried somewhere in the
gorgeous view of the city…
It’s the untouchable emptiness on their way home.
Strange life in the strange world.
Familiar to you, but I still feel unfamiliar
somehow.
Sometimes, I become another person’s companion,
I become one of them. I think and feel with them.
They tell me about a longing.
Longing for family, longing for friends, longing
for the love they couldn't make...
Longing for forgotten memories...
17. EXT. POLK ST, SF – NIGHT
An orangish streetlight on an empty backstreet is shown.
At the corner of the street, a homeless person is
sleeping.
‘I’ (V.O)
It makes me tired at times.
I can’t remember the taste of home anymore…
Maybe. It wasn't home I missed.
Someone said, time is always time and place is
always and only place…
What is actual is actual only for a single time
and only for a single place.
18. EXT. BUS STATION, SF – LATE NIGHT / WINTER
An empty bus station is shown. As THE SOUND OF THE BUS
arrives, The orange-ish headlight of the train glows
and, it overlaps to the lamp light on the table in the
opening.
‘I’ (V.O)
I may not have had a home from the beginning.
People just try to find the meaning of home from
the fetters of their memory.
It’s like a train circling with no destination.
But, don’t try to stop it,
Time lasts forever like your unforgettable memory.
19. INT. LIVING ROOM, HOME, DAMASCUS, MD - LATE NIGHT
(The opening image is repeated in a high resolution)
In the empty living room, the warm, orange lamp lights
in the dark. The dim light waves in a stop motion
movement, and it stops slowly when it comes to the ‘I’s
reflection on the window.
On the reflection, the fully pregnant woman ‘I’ holding
a camera is shown. The reflection grows dimmer and
fades out as the light turns more orange from the
MELANCHOLIC MUSIC from the opening.
‘I’ (V.O)
I'm still afraid...
But, I don’t think I have to understand it…
In the end, we are all strangers among strangers.
[END]
The narration comes with the MELANCHOLIC MUSIC in black.
‘I’ (V.O)
I’m homeless.
I’ve lost my home for many years.
But, I still dream about it,
even though it fades away day by day.
In the empty living room, the warm, orange lamp
lights in the dark. The dim light waves in a stop motion
movement, and it stops slowly when it comes to the old
family picture. In the picture, a little Asian girl
‘I’ with no facial expression sits with her American
parents who seems very happy with the girl. The picture
gets more orangish and it gets dimmer like a burning
paper.
‘I’ (V.O)
I sometimes wake up and go downstairs.
I see the lamp light always turning on.
I don’t know why, but I like it.
The dim light in the dark,
Somehow lonesome, but feels comforting like a
baby in the womb.
(PAUSE)
Maybe… my color of loneliness is orange.
The dim light fades out, the title HOME shows in black
with BABY HEARTBEAT SOUND.
2. INT. LIVING ROOM, HOME, DAMASCUS, MD – DAY
(SUMMER, 1990 DAMASCUS, MARYLAND - SUBTITLED)
In the same living room, the ‘I’s family is shown.
Daniel (dad, 50), Christie (mom, 40), and Ian (older
brother(13) play with ‘I’(8).
Daniel records ‘I’ playing with Ian with his small hi8
Camcorder. ‘I’ looks at the camera curiously.
Daniel walks to ‘I’ and hands the camera to her.
The image of Daniel and Christie is shown in ‘I’s point
of view.
‘I’ (V.O)
This is my family.
I was adopted when I was five.
Unlike other adoptees, I remember the day I was
adopted because it was the day I cried the most
in my life.
3. EXT. HOME LAWN, DAMASCUS, MD – DAY
In a small lawn, ‘I’ and Ian bicker over a bicycle.
As they bicker more, Christie comes to them and
lets ‘I’ take the bicycle instead of Ian. Ian runs
inside the house. The door closes slowly with a stop
motion effect.
‘I’ (V.O)
One day, I fought with my brother for the bike.
(PAUSE)
That night, my brother came to my room and gave
me an old package.
He said, “Go back to your home”.
MELANCHOLIC MUSIC with baby’s BABBLING SOUND comes.
The old pictures of baby ‘I’ are shown in order of age.
‘I’ (V.O)
In the package, I found an old passport and
several pictures of a baby.
(PAUSE)
I don’t remember much about that night, but I
became more quiet from that day on.
‘I’ playing with several pieces of puzzle is shown.
4. EXT. FORK UNION MILITARY ACADEMY, VIRGINIA – DAY
A bunch of children in uniform doing close order drill
on the ground is shown. In a group of white girls, ‘I’
looks at other children nervously.
‘I’ (V.O)
As I didn’t talk much and being shy in my class,
my parents decided to send me to the military
academy in Virginia as my dad’s friend teaches in
there.
I didn’t want to leave them, but I did.
Because I was afraid to be abandoned.
I thought I would leave them before they
leave me.
5. INT. EMPTY DORM ROOM, VIRGINIA – DAY
The empty dorm room is shown for a moment.
‘I’ (V.O)
I was alone always.
I didn’t talk to them; they didn’t talk to me.
I always sat in my room and looked at the
people over the window.
Mom keeps telling me that I look like my dad.
I kind of have a weird reaction to this. Being an
interracial adoptee means I have never looked
like my family.
I know looking like your family is important…
but I don’t think anyone can deny that there are
emotions when you can look at your child and see
your features in them.
But that whole connection is still missing
somewhat.
Next to the neat bed, the bright sunlight comes through
the old window. The light gets glowish as a phone
conversation starts.
INTERCUT - PHONE CONVERSATION
Christie
I don’t know how to explain this…
I think dad and I don’t love anymore,
But, you know we still love you.
I know this will be a hard time for all of us,
But, it’s going to be ok…
(PHONE HANGING UP SOUND)
6. INT. MULTICULTURAL HUMAN SERVICES CENTER, VIRGINIA – DAY
The experimental image of injecting medicine and
dissolving pills in different size and color is
overlapped with MELANCHOLIC MUSIC.
The explanation of ‘Selective Mutism’ is shown on the
image of laboratory mice in the cage.
(Selective Mutism: An anxiety disorder in which a
person who is normally capable of speech does not speak
in specific situations or to specific people. Selective
mutism usually co-exists with shyness or social anxiety)
‘I’ (V.O)
Selective Mutism, that’s what the psychiatrist
wrote on my record. The school sent me to speech
therapy, and they treated me like a laboratory
mouse in a cage. I wanted to go back home, but
it seemed that my parents didn’t want me come
back to their places as they separated.
I felt I was abandoned again.
A mouse running around in a circle is shown in a stop
motion movement.
7. INT. THERAPY ROOM, VIRGINIA – DAY
An Asian teenager boy sitting in the hallway is shown.
The boy has very short hair and wears round metal
glasses. He gazes the sunlight over the entrance faintly.
‘I’ (V.O)
I met one guy from the center.
We didn’t talk each other, but we knew we were in
the same world, the world of isolation.
Is he an adoptee like me?
What he’s looking at…?
We sometimes looked at each other.
No communication at all.
But, we both felt we were drifting to somewhere
we didn’t want to go.
The blurry images of injecting medicine and dissolving
pills comes again in a fast motion movement with
EXPERIMENTAL NOISE. THE NOISE GETS LOUDER when the
drawings are shown and THE NOISE STOPS SUDDENLY at the
last drawing.
‘I’ (V.O)
These are pictures we drew from the program.
In the last drawing, a man hangs himself by the neck.
The man has a long tongue, and it seems like he wants to
say something.
‘I’ (V.O)
The last one I drew with my friend the day before
I left the center.
I’m afraid to call him ‘friend’ because I’m
afraid of you, and you will blame me for being a
friend of my friend.
8. INT. CHO, SEUNG-HUI CONFESSION VIDEO, VIRGINIA – DAY
Several videos Cho sent to NBC News are shown.
CHO
Do you think I wanted to do this?
Do you think I ever dreamed of dying like this?
In a million years, I didn’t want to do this.
You have vandalized my heart,
raped my soul and torched my conscience.
You thought it was one pathetic boy's life you
were extinguishing.
Do you know what it feels to be spit on your face
and to have trash shoved down your throat?
Do you know what it feels like to dig your own
grave? Do you know what it feels like to have
throat slashed from ear to ear?
Do you know what it feels like to be torched
alive? Do you know what it feels like to be
humiliated and be impaled on a cross and left to
bleed to death for your amusement?
You have never felt a single ounce of pain your
whole life. Did you want to inject as much misery
in our lives as you can just because you can?
You had a hundred billion chances and ways to
have avoided today. But you decided to spill my
blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me
only one option.
I didn't have to do this. I could have left.
I could have fled.
But no, I will no longer run.
This is it. There is where it all ends.
End of the road. What a life it was. Some life.
The video caught on the cell phone of a Virginia Tech
student during the shootings is shown in a slow motion
movement.
‘I’ (V.O)
A few years later, he killed thirty-two people.
Why would he do that?
Was he really autistic?
What was so painful for him to kill everyone like
that? What was so painful that he shot his face?
I was afraid.
I was afraid of you.
I was afraid of me because I came from the same
world, the world of isolation… the desert island
I only could live.
Where did I go wrong…?
How long should I live in this locked castle?
The several images of orangish circles move slowly like
cell division in a microscope slide. The orangish light
gets brighter and the old picture in the package is
shown with the MYSTERIOUS SOUND. In the picture, a
young Asian couple holds a baby.
The baby cracks a smile, but the couple smiles
Faintly, and it feels somehow sad.
The baby‘s face gets slowly closer in a wavy
movement.
‘I’ (V.O)
This is the last picture in the package my
brother gave me from that night.
Are they my real parents?
Why did they abandon me?
Was I happy at that time?
Can I smile again if I leave here…?
9. INT. BROKEN BRIDGE, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA – DAY
The broken bridge at Berkeley Marina is shown. Under the
bridge, a paper boat floating on the water is shown. It
stays for a moment then trembles as the wind
blows.
10. EXT. SUNG-SU BRIDGE, SEOUL - DAY
THE NOISE OF PASSING CARS AND WIND comes in black and
the image of the gray bridge is shown.
The gray sky filled with smoke makes a dreary
atmosphere. Cars pass on the freeway under the bridge
with TRAFFIC NOISE. The city’s canopy of buildings is
shown beyond a gray bar on the bridge. The subway train
passes over the bridge. At the same time, a man rides a
bicycle on a riverside path alone.
‘I’ (V.O)
Welcome home, they say.
But, it isn’t home anymore, it hasn’t been for
many years.
I’m a stranger.
On the way home, the road seems so long.
I walk this road by following the train whistle.
One step then another...
Can I get there if I cross the fence of
memory?
11. EXT. SUBWAY STATION, SEOUL – DAY
A mass of people pass on a subway gate.
The mass of people in different colors and styles of
hair and clothes walks on the underground passage with
FEET TAPPING NOISE. TRAIN BOARDING ANNOUNCEMENT comes;
they run into the packed train.
‘I’ (V.O)
Where am I?
Who are these people?
Where are they running off to, so busy?
I stop and say hi to them,
But no one stops; no one looks at me.
They only go their own ways.
The empty platform appears. In the middle of the
platform, a small white screen flickers.
‘I’ (V.O)
Without my consent,
the train named 'time' passes me and leaves.
I’m left alone on the empty platform.
The flickering screen over there only confirms my
existence.
12. INT. SUBWAY TRAIN, SEOUL – DAY
In the subway train, few people sit on benches. As a
train arrives at the station, the image of the ‘I’ with
a camera is briefly reflected.
‘I’ (V.O)
Even the sound of the air is cold in this place.
What am I waiting for, for such a long time?
I see the woman holding a camera over the window.
I feel so awkward with her...
The people with impassive faces in the train are
shown. Some people walk toward the ‘I’.
Among them, a girl with a displeased look looking at
the ‘I’s camera is shown in the ‘I’s POV.
The image of the girl stops when she passes the ‘I’
‘I’ (V.O)
I see many passengers here.
They seem tired and lonesome on their way home.
Do they have a home?
The real home that people are always missing.
I couldn’t find it.
I try to talk to them to ask where the train
goes, but no one wants to talk.
13. EXT. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, SEOUL - DAY
Dust and sand waft on a large school ground in the
winter. The trees are bare of their leaves and little
children play with the sand after school.
The sky is blue, without clouds, and THE NOISE OF THE
WIND rings in their ears.
A boy calls his friends, and they run together. A dust
cloud follows the footsteps of the running children.
A thin branch shivers slowly and a leaf hanging on the
branch falls down slightly. Wind pushes out the leaf
with dust.
The little girl hunkered down with an expressionless
face sees the flying leaf on the empty ground.
‘I’ (V.O)
This is the place I was found.
Everything was not real, even my name and my
Birthday.
The wind blew and I opened my eyes.
Strange, yet somehow familiar whispers tickled my
ears and I took a step towards the sound.
14. EXT. SUNG-SU BRIDGE, SEOUL – NIGHT
A man riding a bicycle under the bridge is shown.
An arrow shaped light circling the bridge is shown in a
slow motion effect.
‘I’ (V.O)
I feel thirsty…
I might have walked too long…
Thirsty between the irretrievable road I have
walked and the invisible road I will walk…
If I untie and untie these rings of memory,
can I arrive home? Can I live forever?
15. EXT. SUBWAY PLATFORM, SEOUL – NIGHT
The orange-ish headlight of the running train comes from
the tunnel with an ECHOING NOISE. The ‘I’s reflection
is scattered on the windows of the passing train in
stop motion movement. The passing train overlaps to the
BART train passing on the Powell Station in the city of
San Francisco.
‘I’ (V.O)
From some place and time, my time has been
stopped.
Time fed me, and simultaneously, it unshaped my
figure.
I feel like I became invisible.
I am only the protagonist in my own time and
space.
I’m just a stranger among the strangers here.
I’m wondering about the city,
the city of isolation…
the city for the strangers.
16. INT. SUBWAY TRAIN, SF – DAY
The people in the BART train are shown accompanied by
the SUBWAY ROUTE ANNOUNCEMENT.
Some talk on the phone, some send texts, some sit and
work on their laptops, and others put on earphones and
listen to music. As a young woman plugs in her earphones,
the AMBIENT NOISE turns to MUTE.
In the MUTE, all of the people look tired and isolated.
Their expressionless faces quiver on the window
reflection.
‘I’ (V.O)
Look at these tiny pieces of life and culture.
The complexity of the world, with its vast
variety of people.
Their loneliness is buried somewhere in the
gorgeous view of the city…
It’s the untouchable emptiness on their way home.
Strange life in the strange world.
Familiar to you, but I still feel unfamiliar
somehow.
Sometimes, I become another person’s companion,
I become one of them. I think and feel with them.
They tell me about a longing.
Longing for family, longing for friends, longing
for the love they couldn't make...
Longing for forgotten memories...
17. EXT. POLK ST, SF – NIGHT
An orangish streetlight on an empty backstreet is shown.
At the corner of the street, a homeless person is
sleeping.
‘I’ (V.O)
It makes me tired at times.
I can’t remember the taste of home anymore…
Maybe. It wasn't home I missed.
Someone said, time is always time and place is
always and only place…
What is actual is actual only for a single time
and only for a single place.
18. EXT. BUS STATION, SF – LATE NIGHT / WINTER
An empty bus station is shown. As THE SOUND OF THE BUS
arrives, The orange-ish headlight of the train glows
and, it overlaps to the lamp light on the table in the
opening.
‘I’ (V.O)
I may not have had a home from the beginning.
People just try to find the meaning of home from
the fetters of their memory.
It’s like a train circling with no destination.
But, don’t try to stop it,
Time lasts forever like your unforgettable memory.
19. INT. LIVING ROOM, HOME, DAMASCUS, MD - LATE NIGHT
(The opening image is repeated in a high resolution)
In the empty living room, the warm, orange lamp lights
in the dark. The dim light waves in a stop motion
movement, and it stops slowly when it comes to the ‘I’s
reflection on the window.
On the reflection, the fully pregnant woman ‘I’ holding
a camera is shown. The reflection grows dimmer and
fades out as the light turns more orange from the
MELANCHOLIC MUSIC from the opening.
‘I’ (V.O)
I'm still afraid...
But, I don’t think I have to understand it…
In the end, we are all strangers among strangers.
[END]
