Synopsis

Long ago, a bride who marries a serpent groom leaves her home to find her vanished husband. She crosses mountains and rivers and meets the serpent groom, but something feels strange. Strange things begin to happen to the beautiful bride.

Director's Comment

In the Korean folktale [Gureongdeongdeong Sinseonbi], the bride tests her abilities, overcomes trials, and ventures into the world to bring back her serpent groom. Yet the “bride who left home” returns and becomes the serpent groom’s wife. Where has the woman’s desire, erased from the folktale, gone? The “shedding” and “keeping” of the serpent’s skin confine the bride within the home. And the moment she steps beyond its threshold, her adventure begins. Through existential experiences of birth, power, and wisdom, the bride finds she can never return home. Once we know the truth, we can never go back to the world we once stood upon. We must choose: remain trapped within the skin or shed it.This work is also a story of women, metaphorically rendered as serpents. How did the woman become a serpent, and where is she heading? What knowledge did the serpent gain when it tasted the fruit? And amid the tangled rumors surrounding serpents and women, where does truth end and falsehood begin?

Staff