TALES FROM THE DAYS OF QUARANTINE 3: WHY "IT'S OKAY NOT TO BE OKAY" IS COMPLETELY OK

I finished watching the Koreanovela entitled IT'S OKAY NOT TO BE OKAY  more than a week ago but I took the time to let it all sink in.

I wouldn't want to gush.  Or to be overruled by a sense of amazement mixed with amusement at the ingenuity of those behind this series.  After SKY CASTLE, THE WORLD OF THE MARRIED (which was actually an adaptation of a British series) and CRASH LANDING ON YOU, I was still not prepared for a series like IT'S OKAY...  I was properly warned by those who saw the show ahead.  They said it was different and that I should brace myself for what some consider a game changer in terms of style and approach of narrative.

When you hear statements like that from very reliable people (which means not your textbook K-novela fanatics), your curiosity reaches a somewhat different level.  The truth is that you expect to be disappointed mainly because people have varying standards and tastes. The more praise is poured into the material, the more suspicious you become that this will live up to your expectations.

But I was pleasantly surprised.

IT'S OKAY NOT TO BE OKAY  is nothing close to perfection but you have never seen anything like it not only in the universe of Korean tv novellas but in the treatment of sustainable season narratives.  This series only affirms the amount of creative investment placed in the conceptualization, preparation but more so the production of these works in order to up their ante of conquering a market far beyond the borders of their country.  As it is, Korean pop culture has literally embraced the Asian region: together with K-Pop and Bong Joon Ho (among others), their media products have become a principal export.  At the same time, the popularity of Korean works defies the curse of the subtitles and have turned BTS, Black Pink and Koreanovelas into the kind of food consumed the world over as sustenance.

You need a certain mindset to appreciate IT'S OKAY.

Even with the title credits alone, you realize that you are entering a completely different world: one that has been fabricated with a deliberate style, utilizing a vision that melds the real with the unreal.  The audience is drawn into the world of fairy tales as embodied by an animation style that echoes Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Corpse Bride (2005).  There is a certain darkness, a dreadfulness about the treatment of the animation --- Burtonesque, yes --- but more reflective of the kind of macabre elements found in the illustrations of the children's stories written by the main character, Ko Moon-Yung (Seo Ye-ji).

The framework story of the isolated Princess standing on her balcony and waiting to be saved becomes the prevailing theme of the entire series.  this is beautifully supported by the heart wrenching story of the brothers Moon Gang-Tae (Kim Soo-Hyun) and Mong Sang-Tae (Oh Jung-Se) as they navigate through their daily lives meant to prove how one protects the other yet how one despises the other as well.  In other words, there is nothing simple nor simplistic about the story.  OK, here we go: there is a great amount of intelligence invested in this narrative. 

Yes, intelligence matched with sensitivity makes the material unique and unforgettable to an audience that may have grown numb from an overdose of Korean stories.  But not this one.  Whether one would like to focus on the use of fairy tales that would validate Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment or the highly sensible and sensitive treatment of autism in the co-dependence of the brothers, the entire mindset used in the creation and production of this work is --- well, groundbreaking.  This is so because of its courage and sense of adventure to experiment with style, to use mixed media (animation with live action) and to venture into a kind of magic realism that is not even Burtonesque but reminiscent of the works of Guillermo del Toro. (Pan's Labyrinth, The Shape of Water).  

The audience is always reminded that this is a fairy tale.  The story of the brothers and the emotionally damaged writer is a fairy tale.  For how else can one explain the castle in the middle of the forest ... or even the evil witch of a mother who morphs into another form so completely unrecognizable so that the plot twist near the end is too fantastic to be real but not invalidated by its truth?  How can this not be a fairy tale when your heroine goes to bed in clothes and make-up as if she is literally a princess who has no hair out of place --- or dress too wrinkled to look immaculate?  How else could a story so sad and painful conclude with each character validated and liberated ... while remaining ennobled and memorable?

No, this is not a story of the real world.  It is a fable overflowing with moral statements without being in your face and using imagination as a tool to convey ideas without going into the route of the tried-tested-and-now-predictable.  It is a love story not just about two people --- but about all kinds of love which demands acceptance and even release.

OK, I can say it: It's Okay Not to be Okay is one of the best Koreanovelas around --- whether you are there studying the phenomenon or genre ... or simply enjoying all these shows like dishes savored and loved to fill the gaps of time at hand.  You laugh, you cry ... but most of all you remember the story because of its superb unfolding and delicately beautiful performances.  Hay, naku.

I am looking at the September 2020 releases of the new series to be released in Korea --- and I am already very, very excited.  The innovation and ingenuity of the Koreans never cease to amaze me.

Needless to add, it frustrates me as well.