While watching South Korean independent documentary film “Efterskole, Going to the Wonderland Korea”, I could not help but reflect on how I was often driven by myself and my parents to do more and more study during my childhood and adolescent years. Just like many other young South Korean students, I was often expected to get good grades for going to a better university someday, and I simply did what I was demanded to do without much doubt or question.

Anyway, I was not particularly unhappy at least because I was fairly smart enough to get good grades, but that is not the case in case of an adolescent girl named Joo-yeon, who simply cannot study more as becoming more anxious and depressed about getting good grades. When she finally came to have a sort of mental breakdown, her parents were surely quite surprised, but they tried to help her as much as possible, and they eventually found an alternative for their daughter.

That alternative in question is a little one-year private transitional school, which is modeled after those “efterskoles” in Denmark. In this small but extraordinary school, the students are allowed to have the “freedom to look to the side” instead of busily studying for advancing further, and the documentary shows us how free and casual the mood is inside the school. While there are some rules for everyone, each of the students freely go for whatever interests them, and they come to have more ideas and thoughts on what they really want to do for their upcoming adult life.

As observing their several free activities including singing and dancing, I was reminded that I was really fortunate to have something to occupy myself in the middle of that strenuous academic process to grind me and many other schoolmates of mine. In exchange for getting good grades, I was allowed to enjoy books and movies whenever there was free time, and I must tell you that I am sometime happier as a movie reviewer than I work as a researcher in some biotechnology company, though my living depends a lot on the latter and I do like my current job. 

The founder of this transitional school, which is incidentally called “Ggumtle efterskole”, is a decent middle-aged man who really cares about his students. He got an idea of establishing his special school after coming to learn and then experience those efterskoles in Denmark, and we see him giving a little lecture to the students of some other school. As a matter of fact, he has done such a lecture like that for more than 1,000 times during last several years, and he is still passionate about introducing alternatives to many students out there who may need some help from his school.

Since it was established in 2014, Ggumtle Efterskole has been fairly successful in helping and supporting its students. We meet an adolescent girl clearly interested in theater, she goes to a theater high school after spending some time in Ggumtle efterskole, and now she is the stage director of a play to be performed in front of the students and teachers. In case of one teenager boy, he had a rather difficult relationship with his father, who comes to open his mind more to his son after watching how much his son has been changed after going to Ggumtle Efterskole. At one point later in the documentary, the father reads a little personal letter to his son in front of many others including his son, and that leads to a very emotional moment for everyone at the spot.

Of course, everything is not rosy and optimistic for Ggumtle Efterskole, and that is evident when its founder and several teachers have a meeting around the end of its another year. As the founder frankly admits, the school has been struggling with a considerable amount of deficit since it was established, and they are all aware that their school can be closed at any time due to its ongoing financial problem.

Nevertheless, the documentary maintains its optimistic tone as observing how hopeful the students of Ggumtle Efterskole are. In case of Soo-yeon, she becomes less unhappy thanks to her time in Ggumtle Efterskole, and she is now planning to spend some time in Denmark for getting to know life and the world more before eventually deciding whatever she is going to do about her own life. Her parents are certainly supportive of her choice, and there is a little touching moment when she and her father look for any suitable gift for her host in Denmark.  

Overall, “Efterskole, Going to the Wonderland Korea” is an engaging documentary which will make you muse more on the inherent problems of the demanding South Korean education system, and you may also want to give some support those good alternative schools like Ggumtle Efterskole. Its running time is rather short (75 minutes), and I wish the documentary showed more of its interesting main subject, but director Yang Ji-he did a good job of presenting its main subject with enough care and respect at least.

By the way, I am now considering showing the documentary to my younger brother and his wife later, who incidentally have a little young daughter at present. After watching it, they may discern that there are always other ways besides pushing her all the way to a better university, and that will probably help her in my inconsequential opinion.