Korean Film 101: Repatriation

North/South division deeply affects families as well.

If Shiri is the ultimate example of right-thinking propaganda cinema (as blockbusters are usually conservative to allow them to gain the maximum audience), Kim Dong-won’s documentary Repatriation is on the opposite end of the political spectrum. Kim is essentially the father of modern Korean documentary film having been a part of the democratization movements of the 70s and 80s his humanistic style of documentary is an extension of the political beliefs and activism he practices in daily life. I plan on writing more about him and his work in this column so keep tuned. He is one of my film heroes and a genuinely pleasant man as well. This week was the 30th anniversary of the Kwangju Massacre and I felt I needed to write about something that was political and in the spirit of the Minjung movement that worked so hard for democracy in Korea. Kim Dong-won is both of those things and his Repatriation in which he spent 12 years chronicling his relationship with North Koreans trying to get back home after being released from jail is just that.

The heroes of the film.

While Shiri is concerned with making the working class and complex discussions of the problems surrounding division invisible, Repatriation relentlessly makes these marginalized sections of society visible.  The heroes of this film, the unconverted long-term prisoners and the politically active communities that shelter them until repatriation, are the very elements of society the agents in Shiri seek to suppress. It is a product of the Minjung movement mentality, and the fact it is shot on video sharply contrasts the high-gloss of the blockbusters I have discussed so far in this column. As it is an activist film, it is decidedly working class in its concerns and aesthetics. It openly (and forcefully) discusses the economic disparities of modern South Korean society, one of the major focuses of the Minjung movement. While Shiri makes the argument that reunification is impossible because of the barbarity and lack of progress (technologically and in terms of Westernization), Repatriation makes the argument that it is impossible for reunification until both Koreas can solve the problems that plague their systems of government.

From the very beginning the film positions the lower working class as more open, liberal, and willing to challenge preconceived notions and stereotypes. Bongchun-dong, director Kim’s own villiage, becomes the prisoners first home because, as the director says in his narration, that it is the only community that could accept these old men. Immediately their lower class allows them to accept other marginalized people into their midst. The fact that they had an active interest in the Minjung movement also helped, as the three main goals that the Minjung movement began with were the democratization of the government, social justice, and the reunification between North and South Korea in mind. Their presence in the community even reinvigorates their movement, and Cho Chang-son’s background as a poor farmer allows him to fit into the community better than Kim Seok-hyoung who was a well-educated intellectual. There is a sense in the film that money corrupts, and those with poor backgrounds are somehow more pure and innocent. This is directly referenced in the face of Kim Young-sik who is too honest to survive in South Korean society. He is not devious enough for the evils of capitalism, and the sweetest man in the film is shown to only follow his heart and for this he gets swindled.

The evil of North Korea.

The lower class is portrayed as being much more traditional and Korean, especially when compared to the overt Westernization that is present in Shiri. Again this is an artifact of the Minjung movement, which sought to define a new Korean identity and a connection between tradition and modernity. While characters sleep in western beds and eat at outdoor cafes in Shiri, the men and women in Repatriation sleep on the floor and eat Korean food. Folk songs and traditional medicine are prominently displayed. The film, being set in the invisible spaces that Korea does not want to show the world (see The Sangkye-dong Olympics for a very literal argument that this is true), creates a space in which the North Koreans can be human. We see them doing the menial labor that we only see one person (who is subsequently knocked over and out of frame) doing in Shiri. The South Korean government has failed to support all of its people, but North Korea is also at fault here. Though the prisoner’s view of North Korea is a country that is prosperous and successful, it is an outdated picture. They left at a time when Communism was working, and concerned with the problems of humanity. The film displays North Korea as another failed system, which also cannot support its people. In fact much is made of the food shortage in the film, with the prisoners refusing to believe it and Ishimaro Jiro’s inability to enter into North Korea because of it. We also see how the film positions the press in Korea as pandering to the upper-class conservatives. The wild accusations (and they may be true but it is doubtful) of cannibalism is also brought up in Shiri and serves as another way South Korea positions North Korea as temporally primitive and behind South Korea. Yet in this film it is used subversively to portray South Korea as afraid and insecure. There is no discussion of the United States aggressive stance (and economic stances) to North Korea as a factor in the mainstream press. Yet here is where we also get the problem with the film. By making the invisible entirely visible, it forgets the visible world and only gives glimpses into the upper class reaction (which is always portrayed as ignorant and prejudiced) to the repatriation. We get one young business man who’s time with the unconverted prisoners remind him of his activist days as a student. However, he disappears from the film after this leaving these invisible spaces to go back to the visible work of his job where he can go with the flow and forget.

Menial labor becomes a political message for the prisoners, as they use it to show not only the hard working spirit of the Korean people (working hard for the reunification) but also the problems with the South Korean society. They cannot get welfare, and live in utter poverty, not only because they are North Korean but also as lower class members upward mobility is next to impossible. Only by returning to North Korea are the prisoners able to move upward, and when they do they become products themselves to the North Korean government. They are used for propaganda, showcased as national heroes. Yet there is no mention in the North Korean videos of the years that the prisoners spent outside of jail. To this video we see, it is as if they went directly from jail to being repatriated. Just as they become products in the national economy of propaganda in North Korea, images of North Korea become consumer goods in South Korea. We see blockbusters such as Shiri and Joint Security Area becoming more popular, and North Korean images being cleaned packaged and sold to the public by the South Korean media. Yet even Kim Dong-won is hesitant as to whether reunification is possible once the prisoners return to the North, their new economic status changes them in his eyes and he prefers to remember them during the years they spent in Bongchun-dong. Reunification becomes impossible in this film for the opposite reason, the lower class can accept North Korea as comrades in their struggle but see both governments as flawed and broken. If North Korea were to enter into economic partnership with the South it would merely perpetuate the problems of capitalism into a new area. For reunification to work, both systems need to be radically altered and there needs to be open discussion of topics that both governments seem to want to keep invisible. Also I would like to point out with the recent UN report on freedom of expression in South Korea is worrying, and there needs to be more directors like Kim trying to engage the public in political discourse in an attempt to fight the apathy that the comforts of modern South Korean life have afforded the youth.