| Kwak, Yung Bin Ph. D. Program in Film Studies The University of Iowa |
| "What is Korean Cinema? Korean Cinema? Where the heck is Korea??/td> |
| As the questions above concisely demonstrate, question concerning Korean
cinema must puzzle those without any prior knowledge about the country. It is, however,
where this lack of knowledge is prevalent that cinema may exert more powerful influence.
Without Western movies, for instance, how could a little Korean kid living in the Eastern
Asia have a solid sense of dread of American Indians, speaking nonsensical words, dancing
while making weird sound, and skinning human heads? Chasing to the point, for those who
attend and enjoy our film festival, it seems highly probable that the following questions
would arise: is this Korea? Have Korean lived in the place like this? Or haven’t their
environments changed a bit yet? Our answers to these questions are both Yes and No. Yes. We have lived in the country like this in this way. Those who watch Bungee Jumping of Their Own or Memento Mori, for example, may find it surprising to see the way the homosexuality is treated in contemporary Korea. In the movies, these students cornered to the margin fail to find another way out except these tragic or fantastic ones. Or some might find it amusing to discover the difference or the similarity of the way these students behave, at least in their school, from that of Americans or others. And those who watch Peppermint Candy, knowing the director’s intention of “reading Korean contemporary history through film,?might be shocked to wonder to what extent the portrayal of violence done to and by the protagonist that leaves no room to himself is basically faithful to the historical facts. Our second answer, on the other hand, is No. Because this question asking if it’s Korea ignores the fact that this is film. This is not Korea. This is Korean cinema. No documentary is even included (putting the debate concerning documentary’s truth value aside). Of course, cinema always has been too realistic. But it is not reality. Despite of its power to force us to believe it as reality by making us laugh, cry, and shudder, it is not reality. It is a film. It is merely a moving image. We can’t grab it. It’s basically a fantasy, or rather, a phantom. That’s why we have some people talking about cinema as ghost, such as Bazin, Derrida, Perez, or Blanchot if you will. Because ghost is real with its effects on people despite of its unreal, intangible status as the ghost is to those girls in Memento Mori. Ghost, or film, never easily allows us to dismiss ghost as a ghost, film as just a film. Because it seems real. Because Koreans in these films all seem to be real Koreans. Hence, again, the temptation to identify Korean cinema with Korea. Still some perceptive audience might, however, find this temptation to relate the film to reality irresistible when watching movies even like Attack the Gas Station or The Foul King, which are somewhat distant from the films standing in realist tradition. In Attack the Gas Station, for instance, some might point out the contradiction between daring proclamation in the beginning of the film that they attack the gas station just for fun and the kind explanation given in later part of the film that reveals the rationale behind their odd behaviors. Contrary to many critics?reviews that accused the film of shallow social criticism, then, we’d better criticize it for not keeping its hold of the fantasy until the end. Compared to Attack the Gas Station, at this juncture, The Foul King unfolds its story in the opposite manner. While materializing his fantasy into reality by becoming a wrestler, the protagonist fails to reach his initial goal, somewhat trivial and tragicomic, he wanted to achieve. His wish to apply the wrestling skills to his miserable reality loses its magic outside his fantasy world, which is real. It is the honesty by which this film draws the limit of fantasy in reality without any sympathy. Besides, by limiting all the options the protagonist could use as foul, which is against the rule, The Foul King succeeds in disclosing the absolute violence by which he is imposed without having him winning in reality, what Attack tried to do in regrettable manner, without restricting fantasy. If Attack the Gas Station were faithful to its fantasy, or to be accurate, extremely faithful to the fantasy by having those characters in the movie really do it just for fun, without the unnecessary guilty consciousness that ‘it is merely an absentminded commercial flick,?it might have resulted, paradoxically, in radical social (or even a-social) commentary. Not by trying to be realistic but by rigorously remaining as a pure fantasy. With different characters in different situations, and with different genres, however, these films show people cornered and marginalized by the violence. Whether it is direct and physical violence as in Peppermint Candy, or indirect and diluted one as in Bungee Jumping of Their Own, Memento Mori, or something in-between as in The Foul King, Attack the Gas Station, it is always the margin, or the people on the margin that reveal the trace of the violence they suffer. Driven to the edge, sometimes they scream, sometimes they throw themselves, sometimes they dream a fantasy, and sometimes they run violent. That’s why the margin is always violent. Some might derive a linear narrative like ‘a gradual mitigation of violence?from these films, or some might pose a question whether this organization, or narrativization to bind these films under one heading is another violence. Probably that’s why we Koreans, at the center of stage presenting these films, need you audiences, standing around the margin, to detect if our festival hides any violence. Only from that margin, Korean cinema can resume its journey of haunting. |