Blue Eye
블루아이
Beullu-ai
A burned-out Korean cameraman goes to Zimbabwe to shoot a wildlife documentary he half expects to be his last job, and finds his own life mirrored in the rise and fall of an African wild dog dynasty and of Blue Eye, the outcast male driven from his pack.
Synopsis
The narrator, a cameraman in his forties, left his job at a broadcaster and has lost the will to live since his divorce. On the recommendation of an old colleague he flies to Zimbabwe to film a documentary on African wild dogs in Mana Pools National Park, the place he has chosen as the last stop of his life.
In the bush he works alongside a young Ndebele guide who campaigns for the endangered dogs, a legendary documentary director whose shoot collapses amid a scandal, and the man funding the production: the high-school bully who once tormented the narrator's weakest classmates and is now a construction executive.
Running in parallel is the chronicle of an African wild dog dynasty, and of Blue Eye, a two-year-old male with legendary blue eyes who is driven out of his pack, wanders alone, and returns. The two chronicles, human and animal, turn out to be metaphors for each other.
Asking what it means to be human, and whether love can be rebooted, the novel shows a man who must look at himself alone, stripped of everything, before he can recover.
Why it works on screen
- Mana Pools National Park on the Zambezi. A Korean cameraman who has chosen Africa as the last stop of his life arrives to film African wild dogs.
- The man funding the shoot is the high-school bully who tormented the narrator's weakest classmates, now a construction executive. The memory of school violence follows him all the way to the African bush.
- Running alongside the human story is the chronicle of an African wild dog dynasty, and of Blue Eye, a male driven from his pack who wanders alone and returns.
- A legendary documentary director's shoot collapses in scandal, and a young Ndebele guide fights for the endangered dogs: a documentary being made inside the film.