It was, so to speak, a film that exemplified the Spielberg mode of manufacture, and it recalled the blockbusters of old such as the classic "Jaws" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" that I remember watching as a child in the 1970s. Indeed, I had the overwhelming sense that I had seen this film before, and it did seem to shamelessly refer to its model, which was the Spielberg classic from the early 90s, "Saving Private Ryan".
This film was thus in many ways a conventional historical drama, but it was driven by a current mode that seems to afllict not only South Korea but also many of the developed countries that have accepted Western values. It seems to be responding to a yearning for cohesion, for the recapturing of a grand sense of mission that seems to be lacking and that is becoming accentuated in a bewildering period in which we see the rise of new superpowers. South Korean politics is fully as combative if not more so than American politics, and across the ocean we have received news from time to time of scandals that seem to recur with astonishing regularity and which indicate the lack of a vital consensus.
Yes, South Korea would seem to be almost as perpetually gridlocked as the United States, and we hear about scandals that touch the lives of famous politicians, leading indeed to the suicide of a previous Prime Minister who was accused of some form of conflict of interest. While not descending to the depths of the theatrical Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, a mercurial personality that Italy can't seem to "quit", if I may echo the words of the lonesome cowboy in "Brokeback Mountain", we do have the portrait of an unsettling state of affairs in which deals are negociated in a callous manner that ends up having harmful consequences.
We are no strangers to that here in the United States. For the past few weeks we have been bombarded by the news regarding the impass that seems to characterize negociations over the authorization of an increased debt limit. The consequences would be disastrous, according to Tim Geitner, and yet the Republicans in the House of Representatives are blinded by ideology and refuse to compromise. It seems as if the Ayatollas of the Right, such as Grover Norquist and his sacred text (the "Anti-Tax" pledge that he forced many Republicans to sign) are holding steadfast, and there is no appeal to reason. Morning after morning I hear the news and I feel disgust, and I yearn for a period when we were not so polarized, and in which there wasn't this pervasive sense of gridlock, demonization and the fear of an unknown threat that all sides invoke.
In the case of Korea, these threats assume a very visible shape. They are embodied by the unholy spectre of a dangerous and threatening North Korea, that pariah dictatorship ruled by a tinpot figure who insists on resorting to bluster in order to assert his demands. The economy of the Hermit Kingdom is in a state of meltdown and the prospect of mass starvation seems all too real and yet the regime engages in showdown (like the budget showdown in Congress but with real ammunition) that seem destined to bring about a real calamity.
That toxic dynasty to the north, bolstered as it is by the emerging superpower of the 21st century that is China, is in the midst of a dynastic succesion. North Korea has not of the economic vitality of China but has all the foreboding totalitarian impulses of a Cold War regime that lives under the perceived threat of attack, and this is fueling further conflict in the Korean penninsula, one that has repercussions in the domestic politics of the South, as well as in the perceptions and values of its people.
Thus, perhaps, it is possible to speculate that this wartime epic is fueled by an appetite for resolution that takes the form of ideological clarity. The muddle that is the penninsula, with two hostile countries that face off in a permanent standoff that is punctuated by episodes of war (such as the sinking of the South Korean ship and the bombing of an island) underlies the need to investigate questions of identity and of what, precisely, constitutes a family. We have, thus, an epic about two brothers who go to war and who manage to resolve, albeit in a painful way, some of these differences. It is a wish for reconciliation when politics offers no recourse for action other than to continue with an intractable belligerent stand.
From the very beginning the film felt oddly disjointed and incongruous. We open up to an urban setting in which people are bustling about in a stage that seems all too perfect. There is none of the grit and grime that one would expect to see in a poor country. We have, instead, a lens that is idealized and that softens the portrayal of these people, divesting them of any hard edges. The people seem to be quite evidently actors in a period piece, and we have the thoroughly unconvincing portrayal of two brothers by actors who have a physical aspect that is thoroughly at odds with the conditions one would expect to hold during this moment.
The elder brother who is a shiner of shoes is walking along happily in the middle of the street and seems to have none of the physical afflictions of the poor. He has a perfect skintone, has movie-star good looks, and he is furthermore a tall, rangy and athletic young man whose comportment would seem to suggest more an athlete or music idol than a poor South Korean from a period in which the nation was emerging from the brutal experience of Japanese colonialism.
The younger brother is a avid scholar who is seen returning from school, and he hears the cries of his brother, and echos them in a playful scene in which there is much calling to each other. This younger brother also seems to have been unscathed by poverty and all too obviously conforms to the stereotype of the student who has a promising future, being awkward but nonetheless very sincere. He may not know how to fight but he is defined by good sentiments, and is a little too innocent.
We have, thus, a study in opposites, where we are presented with two brothers who are meant to suggest the poles of an average Korean family. The tragedies that they have lived through and that have resulted in a deceased father and a mother who is unable to talk are conveniently glossed over, and we would seem to have a relatively stable family unit. Perhaps those details would have been too inconvenient or distracting, for this is meant to be a fable for the nation, in which pains are taken to demonstrate that the values (the loyalty, commitment and affection) that characterizes them is somehow emblematic of an entire nation before it is engulfed by the war. Even the announcement of the first conflict doesn't seem to worry the characters who smugly predict a short conflict in which the South will win. Was the existance of the North only a foreign intervention, such as the painful epoch of Japanese colonialism? Were they ever as truly unified as this film would purport to demonstrate?
The grit and realism of a true historical piece is ultimately superfluous here, although a stable of characters conformed by gruff and memorable characters will ultimately be presented. This too, seems to be a formula necessary for an military epic, and we are meant to see how another family unit will be formed on the front lines as these characters face the dangers of war. We are meant to feel empathy for these characters, and we know full well that many of these secondary characters will meet gruesome ends. And it is indeed a film about bonding and about unity, a wish fulfillment that alludes to the perception of the precise lack or threat to these values from the contemporary perspective of the film makers. It is a product emanating from suburbia but wishing somehow to cauterize the contemporary wound by a temporal displacement to the past, a displacement that has long been superseeded by the economic transformation of South Korea.
The ending was thoroughly predictable, and the motivations of the characters somehow seemed much too pure and, somehow, uniform. There was little of a sense of evolution, of events that changed the perception of these characters, even in the face of repeated scenes of death and dismemberment. One brother, he of the glamour idol looks, is trying to protect the younger one, and in the process he discovers something about himself, a message that seems astonishingly contemporary: he actually craves attention.
The elder brother has the looks and he want to conform to the role of a star, and if he needs to fulfill the role of a hero while justifying it as an attempt to protect his brother, then he will do so craftily. He seems to have entered into an ethereal realm in which bombs and bullets don't touch him, and in which he is seemingly impervious. He is the star, isn't he? Reality can't touch him for it is all illusion, and perhaps this constitutes the true scope of the madness that seems to be affecting much of contemporary life in the modern, developed world. We are all seduced by fiction, and we believe in the power of narratives of fulfillment and accomplishment, but we seem hardly to appreciate that we can't all aspire to these neat Hollywood endings. Reality will intervene although in this film, the story is resolved along the lines of precisely this type of Spielberg ending, and a wistful and tragic reunification is achieved but at a cost.
This madness affects both brothers and drives them ever further apart. The house divided cannot stand, and it is inevitable that there will be a break, some action or episode that will symbolize the loss of cohesion and interrupt the fantasy that is being presented. In the end, the elder brother will be traumatized by an episode in which his fiancee is accused of being a communist and is killed, and he will join the other side, giving way to a renewed frenzy of destruction. The perception of illustion tends to have that effect upon those who have been summarily awoken from their dream.
This was, then, a movie that was formulated from a suburban, relentlessly prosperous and commercial vantage point meant to ennoble what was a much more complex and ambiguous historical episode. This was the war as imagined and filmed by a Korean version of Steven Spielberg, and as such, it was given over to spectacle and cheap emotional manipulation under the guise of a true historical piece. One suspects that the problem of unity will continue to haunt the Koreans for the foreseable future, and will find expression in other similar cultural products.
Eternal Observer -- ORomero (c) 2013
Copyrights ORomero 2013
Copyrights ORomero 2013
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