Since there are already several well-written blogs on the substance in Secret Sunshine, I want to focus in on the end. Lee Chang-Dong creates these really profound films and completes them with these endings that are open to interpretation.
While in Poetry Mija commits suicide, the ending is only implying that, and knowing the way everything else in Lee's movies work, that might not be the end of it (though I do believe that is in fact what Mija did). Secret Sunshine left off with Shin-ae cutting her hair while Kim held the mirror. After that last scene, the camera panned to sunshine across the dirt in the garden--secret sunshine, the kind of blessings or little graces that often get overlooked.
The ending of Secret Sunshine was, to me, hopeful. While Mija's ending wasn't so hopeful, but rather a plea to remind everyone not to overlook the little things, Shin-ae's ending was one that left room for the rebuilding of a new person in herself. After all, cutting hair is often used symbolically to represent a change in a character, I think the same went for Shin-ae.
As the movie ended, I couldn't stop from laughing because I love how Lee Chang-Dong always leaves the audience off. I like to compare it to being taken on this sinister but beautiful bus tour and then being dropped off a random stop and having the bus leave before you can turn around and get back on. It's funny, while at the same time not at all--and there's always something pretty special to learn along the way.
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