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January 23, 2006
Mountains & Hanoks
My History & Mountains article is out, and forthcoming is one on the hanok village in Jeonju, a preservation zone of old houses that started being developed as a tourist site a few years ago. A few pictures below.
This was the most interesting building in the town, a church built on the site where several Korean Catholics were martyred over the centuries.
This was the traditional Korean inn where Kathleen and Jen and I stayed. The room had air conditioning, a new Samsung television, a refrigerator, and, get this, free wireless Internet. Yikes.
A gate in what used to be the Jeonju wall. The village was built outside the wall by Koreans who refused to continue living in the city when the Japanese arrived. Interesting how these little geographical artifacts can trickle down in history to continue affecting the present.
Posted by b-applegate at 11:47 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 9, 2006
I am a mountain climber.
This foreign activities column is turning into "Ben does things for which he is entirely unprepared." This weekend I climbed a mountain for the first time. It was Jirisan, second-tallest mountain on the Korean Peninsula, 6,200 feet, not exactly impressive, I'll admit, but it still made me sore in ways I never imagined. The sunrise, and watching the clouds drift between peaks, was beautiful, though. Just incredible. Pictures forthcoming.
Next up is the Epicurean Club, sampling subtle dishes from internationally famous chefs. Another thing I am totally unprepared for, but at least one that requires fewer hours of trudging.
Posted by b-applegate at 8:48 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 6, 2006
Welcome to Fantasy Village
I wrote a review of the "Welcome to Dongmakgol" DVD this weekend. For those that don't know, the movie, written by Jang Jin (whose Baksuchildae Ddeonnara I had seen and enjoyed) with music by Hisaishi Joe (Miyazaki and Beat Takeshi's composer) was a sleeper hit over the summer in Korea. I was really looking forward to it. The review below should show I was disappointed (the article's also available in pdf format).
In June 1950, hundreds of South Korean civilians were probably gunned down by American soldiers at No Gun Ri. This ranks alongside the indiscriminate use of napalm by soldiers under the U.N. Command, the massacre of 100,000 people in Seoul by North Korean forces, and the torture and execution of prisoners by the North and China as one of the terrible atrocities of the Korean War. Why did these things happen? How can we keep them from happening again? Don't watch "Welcome to Dongmakgol" if you want to find out.As a personal drama between soldiers, "Welcome to Dongmakgol" is a touching fiction. Perhaps, if it were set in a made-up country, we could leave it at that. But it's set in Korea, and the film's masquerading as a historical portrait and an allegory for North-South relations is its undoing.
Here's the hook: Two soldiers from the South, three from the North and one American pilot end up stranded in a mountain village called Dongmakgol, where they learn to love each other and come to terms with their lives. Dongmakgol is idyllic to the point of absurdity � at first the villagers seem unconcerned by the destruction of their food stores, for instance � and the enemies are soon working happily side by side, calling each other by nicknames.
No one mentions Kim Il Sung or the obligation to spread communism. No one mentions the United Nations or the need to protect democracy. It's as if there is some kind of drug in the air that makes the soldiers forget why they were fighting. In fact, if we are to believe the movie, the Korean War was non-ideological, fought on a whim. Even worse, both sides conveniently forget the wanton massacres by their enemies. This stunning historical revisionism is very disappointing for such an accomplished writer as Jang Jin.
But the worst is saved for the end, when the motley crew decide they must sacrifice themselves to save the village. The climax is beautifully filmed and quite emotional, but something defeats it and in the process the entire movie: They deliberately shoot down an American plane and celebrate the death of the pilot. Where is that enlightened appreciation for all human life? It seems a few weeks in a farming village is not only enough to inspire
amnesia, but also to turn these two South Korean soldiers into enthusiastic killers of their erstwhile allies.This film could have worked. If only it had been a realistic portrait of the hardships of a rural village disrupted by the ideological divisions and cruelty of both the Northern and Allied armies, we could have seen a truly moving examination of an unequaled period of tumult and pain.
Instead, we get slick propaganda, designed to make us forget what really happened � or worse, made by people who have already forgotten.
ben@joongang.co.kr
I hadn't heard much about public opinion on the movie when I wrote this, so all I knew was it had been extremely popular. I was a little afraid I had been too hard on the film. So I asked one of the managers in our office, an older man, maybe 55-60, if he had seen it. His reaction was reserved and apologetic (everything my review isn't).
He said, "I have three or four thoughts about that movie."
"First, it was the only movie I saw in a theater last year." Apparantly he hadn't been to a movie theater in a long time, and said he was impressed with how comfortable the seats were and that they were on a slant so he could see over everyone's heads ("They used to be flat, so that if a tall person sat in the front you could not see.")
Second, he was impressed by how good the actors were. He said he watches some of those TV dramas and the actors are not really good at all, but that the actors on the screen were very believable.
Third, he said, he said the North Korean officers seemed too nice to him, and it seemed unrealistic. He said he'd talked to his son, who told him that it's just a movie for entertainment, and he shouldn't take it seriously. But, he said, he thinks it might still be important (no kidding). He said that it was almost as though the North Koreans were always "our friends."
Fourth, he said he'd heard about some kind of conspiracy where North Korean characters in movies (like JSA, Silmido, Taegukgi, and Dongmakgol) were acting "nice." He didn't really elaborate on this, so I asked someone else in the office about it and she said that though she didn't really buy into it, there was a conservative speculation that film directors are paying back Roh Moo-hyun and the pro-democracy people for driving out the military dictatorship by helping out his NK policy with revisionist movies.
This also seems like too much to me, though I have to say this script doesn't seem like the same Jang Jin who directed Baksuchilddae Ddeonara. That movie was tightly played and very effective, whereas this one is entirely unbelievable and moves like a slug.
Next mystery: Why the heck did all those Koreans go see it in theaters?
Posted by b-applegate at 10:11 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack