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The Bronze Mirror (2007)

Synopsis

On his way home from the village market, a man finds a bronze mirror which has fallen from a passing noblewoman’s carriage. The man mistakes his own reflection for that of a lucky spirit who will help make him rich. He takes it home and hides it in a drawer. His curious wife finds it and thinks her reflection belongs to a beautiful woman who her husband has brought home. She tells her mother-in-law who, however, laughs at the old hag she sees. When the father-in-law peers into the mirror, he thinks his father has returned from the dead. On seeing all of their four reflections together, the son loses faith in the spirit and puts it back where he found it. A passerby finds it and is similarly confused by what he sees.

Curator’s notes

by Dr Marian Quigley

An adaptation of a Korean folktale, The Bronze Mirror is a gently humorous allegorical tale about how we often fail to recognise ourselves and how readily we pass judgement on others. The mirror, something the villagers have never seen before, functions as a reflection of their hopes and fears. The young man hopes to become rich; his wife worries that her husband may be unfaithful; whilst the old man fears that he failed to be a dutiful son to his own father.

The computer animation was made by Susan Danta (nee Kim) while a postgraduate student at AFTRS. The film simulates wooden puppet animation and has Korean dialogue with English subtitles. Danta’s film Shadow Play (1999), produced for a postgraduate diploma at Victorian College of the Arts, was a combination of puppet and computer animation using traditional techniques. Her later film Mother Tongue (2002) uses digital techniques to suggest oil painting.

Danta believes that her earlier training in traditional techniques helps her to explore the possibilities of digital animation in a more dynamic way. Her poetic evocations of human relationships and experiences provide a marked contrast to the often noisy, fast-paced, 3D computer-generated animations produced by large studios such as Disney.

The Bronze Mirror won the award for Best Student Film at the Australian Effects and Animation Festival in 2007, and the award for Best Australian Film at the Melbourne International Animation Festival in 2009. It screened at MIFF and at a number of international film festivals.