'Civil War' Inside, 'Blood Alliance' Outside... The Bitter Irony of Family [Slate]

Lee Heejoon's "Rectangle, Triangle"
The Geometry of Miscommunication: Clinging to Different Facets
The Aesthetics of Distance Perfected Through a Child's Eyes

Movie Still Cut of "Jiksagakyeong, Samgakgyeong"

Believing that proximity leads to complete understanding of others is an illusion. Even for those living under the same roof and sharing meals, each person perceives reality in a vastly different way.

Actor Lee Heejoon's directorial work, "Rectangle, Triangle," captures this poignant irony. Using a cramped living room as its stage, the film sheds light on the hidden facets of the family as a three-dimensional entity through geometric metaphors. The depiction is vivid and almost painfully realistic, creating the sensation of sitting in a noisy living room on a holiday, witnessing the unfiltered faces of family members up close.

Conversations that begin with laughter quickly escalate into shouting matches, and soon even devolve into physical altercations. Economic hierarchy, patriarchal order, and long-standing emotional resentments all collide and explode. It is a portrait of ourselves-something we may wish to ignore but cannot deny.

The central motif running through the film is a triangular prism made of paper, crafted by Jin Junho (Jin Seonkyu). He asks his family, "What does this look like to you?" Aunt Kim Misook (Kim Heejeong), sitting to the side, answers "triangle," while brother-in-law Park Gwanghee (Oh Yong), sitting in front, says "rectangle." From each perspective, their answers are obviously correct. Yet, if we look objectively, each is only seeing a single facet of the whole, not the complete reality.

Movie 'Rectangle, Triangle' Still Cut

This scene penetrates to the heart of familial conflict. Everyone wants their own life to be acknowledged as a neat rectangle, while they define and lecture others as unstable triangles. Rather than viewing others in three dimensions, they judge based solely on the slice visible from their own standpoint. The film incisively reveals that the absence of communication is not a matter of the heart, but rather stems from the rigidity of one’s perspective.

Such friction soon spills over into disputes with neighbors. Family members who were waging civil war against each other quickly unite and reorganize their ranks when an external threat appears, as if nothing had happened. The sharp edges that were previously turned inward are now, almost magically, directed outward at a common enemy. The once fragmented shapes, each struggling for survival, now form a solid defensive line together.

This vividly exposes the exclusivist side of Korean blood-tie familism, where instinct prevails over rational judgment. It is both bitter and oddly realistic that the mechanism for resolving conflict is not mutual understanding, but a shared hostility toward outsiders.

The climax of this chaotic farce is completed through the eyes of the youngest family member. As the adults engage in a physical brawl with the neighbors, granddaughter Park Eunseo (Lee Harang) watches through a hole in a paper model, smiling innocently. In that moment, the family’s fierce struggle is transformed into a comical slapstick routine.

Movie Still Cut of "Jiksagakyeong, Samgakgyeong"

This is an intuitive realization of the "aesthetics of distance" advocated by Charlie Chaplin. Through the innocent gaze of a child, the film gently reminds us that by taking a step back from an entrenched situation, even a sordid quarrel becomes a vibrant fragment of life. Up close, the shapes may seem sharp enough to cut, but from a step away, they become puzzle pieces that support one another. Perhaps this appropriate distance is the only way to sublimate wounded relationships into humor.