Birthday Boy

Birthday Boy is a 2004 short animated film written and directed by Sejong Park (박세종) while a student at Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS). The film has won more than 30 awards at film festivals around the world. Production As a poor Korean immigrant who became Australian after marrying an Australian university student that he met on his backpacking trip, Park aimed to make a film that describes the sensibilities of the East Asia. Sound design and music utilize the Korean atmosphere to the point that it is "interstitial" and evokes the Korean setting of the film. Plot An on-screen title sets the action in Korea, 1951. The film tells the story of a young boy, Manuk, who roams a seemingly deserted town to glean and recycle the debris of war. We first meet him in the wreck of an aeroplane, looking for a particular piece of war refuse – a bolt – to turn into a toy soldier for his collection. He sings a song about a bear. Upon hearing the unmistakable low whistle of a train in the distance he runs to the track and places the bolt on the rail. The train thunders past on its urgent mission to carry tanks to the front. Manuk stands mesmerised, and grins widely. Once the train has passed he retrieves the bolt which has become magnetised. He makes his way through the town, pretending to be a soldier engaged in house-to-house fighting until his attention is captured by the drone of aeroplane engines. Silently he watches them slowly cross the sky. His war game begins again as he crouches behind rocks on a ridge overlooking an area with houses jumbled together. A postman cycles down the road below Manuk's hiding place. Manuk imagines he is with his dad, pinned down by enemy fire. “Dad, there are too many of them,” he cries as the sound of machine guns and artillery fire fill his head. “But we are braver than them,” his father replies in the game. Manuk picks up a rock as if it is a hand grenade, expertly pulls the pin with his teeth and hurls it at the enemy crying “Dad, get down!” He waits, crouched, fingers in ears for the explosion which never comes. Instead, we hear the postman cry in surprise and pain, before crashing his bicycle and shouting at his unseen tormentor. Manuk slinks away and climbs the hill towards his home. He takes a key from a special hiding spot, and approaches the verandah in front of his house. He notices a parcel and hurries to open it.