If our previous program of Korean films was more focused on mainstream productions, Breathless represents the peak of a very differently conceived program…



Ever since two disturbing torture islands - Ki-duk’s (The Isle) and Chul-soo’s (Bedevilled), transformed into these sort of a S&M lairs in which the female characters have been reduced to undergoing the worst imaginable physical and mental humiliations – were created, the world of Korean film has systematically questioned the identity of their abusers, through whom the concept of virility has been redefined Korean cinema. A Korean university professor with an American address, Kyung Hyun Kim, discussed this issue in his book “The De-masculinization of Korean Cinema”. In his book the author, also known as the producer of Im Sang-soo’s The Housemaid, refers to many theoreticians, from Deleuze and Lacan to Žižek and Mulvey, to prove that perceptions of the Korean male identity have changed since the “post-traumatic genre” of the early 1980’s, which were a direct answer to the assassination of the Korean president Chung-he Park. As usually happens, women were the victims of these demonstrations of pure machismo, so the process was very slow.

Even though the author’s psychoanalytical theories do not mention the crazy Ik-joon Yang’s Ddongpari (Breathless), because it was made after his book was published, that film is probably the best example of the writer’s preoccupations. The very first scene, in which the crude Sang-hoon Kim (played by the director himself) sees a man on the street in the middle of the night brutally beating up a woman for unknown reasons, proves this. After punishing the brute he asks the victim why she was so stupid to consent to such abuse. She does not know how to answer such an absurd question, so he gives her a slap on the face. In Ik-joon’s works the cycle of violence, fear, aggregated rage and being an accomplice is transformed into a perfect vicious circle that offers practically no way out. All the protagonists of different genders and ages take part in that cycle, from school kids glued to their PlayStations to old alcoholics who suffer from classic PTSD symptoms whose roots are presented through flashbacks. Of course, Ik-joon’s hero hit the victim of abuse because both of them understand only the language of reflexive reaction to violence. Therefore it is not surprising that the initial violent action amid which we meet Sang-hoon is one in which he tries to confront the protesting students. However, the irony is even greater because his hatred towards any kind of authority has a lot more in common with the students that he is abusing than he realizes.

If the previous program of Korean film was more focused on mainstream productions, Breathless represents the peak of a very differently conceived program. Authors such as Ik-joon who has so far been unjustly ignored in our parts, are comparable to such great Korean filmmakers such as Bong Joon-ho and Lee Chang-dong. This “de-masculinization” is perfectly illustrated by another Korean film that we will see in this program – the meta-film folly by Hun Jang Rough based on Ki-duk Kim’s screenplay, whose original title could be more freely translated as Film is Film. On one hand we have a film action star who specializes for roles of vicious gangsters and on the other, a real vicious gangster who dreams about a film career. His dreams become reality when he accepts an invitation to act in a film but only under the condition that all his fight scenes are real and not scripted. The climactic ending takes place on a muddy beach, where it becomes evident that all these macho rituals are not only frustrating but also quit pathetic.

Unlike Ik-joon and Hun Jang who observe (de)masculinization at its utmost stage, the ingenious documentary maker Chung-ryoul Lee (code: Old Partner) treats the old male body in relation to the old body of a tired ox who slowly drags the man’s tandem (the author’s creative method is close to the rural ethnographies of Raymond Depardon and peasant utopias of Uruphong Raksasang).

We leave the Korean village and return to the chaos of Seoul at night (code: My Dear Enemy) in which the mechanisms of the classic road movie become sort of a sidewalk movie, while a girl and her ex-boyfriend roam the city visiting his debtors, even though it is not just about monetary restitution but also love. Even though the film’s director Yoon-ki Lee is known for his subtle dramas with strong female characters, in this film the hero’s de-masculinization occurs in a well defined but utterly nonchalant way, the author’s creative style owes a lot to Jim Jarmusch (code: Broken Flowers). The sort of de-masculinization that happened in the 1950’s is illustrated through the character of a young postman in the comedy by Heung-sik Park My Mother the Mermaid, which subtly flirts with the motif of time travel. (Dragan Rubeša)