"truth, you can't handle the truth" ends JSA

Okay, I was pretty far along when I stopped watching yesterday. And so I'm not surprised that my notes on the movie were dead on. Major Jang's zeal in getting at the "truth" (i.e., objective reality) only leads to the end of her investigation, and then her unofficial "truth"-finding leads to more suicide. (Fairly overdone for my taste, but I've a very low tolerance for cheese/predictability.) But moreover, the horribly acted Maj. Gen. Bruno Botta (general/armchair anthropologist) gives us the line that sums up the not so subtle message about the relation of North and South Korea at this border. Speaking to Major Jang, after dismissing her, he says: "You haven't learned much about Pumwanjung yet [poorly overplayed significant pause], here the peace is preserved by hiding the truth." Well, that couldn't be seen from a mile away. (Whoever cast Christoph Hofrichter in the role of Botta...poor choice. It feels like they had maybe one day to shoot with him, he clearly didn't figure out the movie). Of course, even after those wise words--perhaps a better actor would have convinced Maj Jang?--she is relentless in her pursuit, and so Su-Hyok has to blow his own brains out when he is confronted with the memory of killing his (N Korean) friend Jung--and on Jung's birthday! Chan-Wook Park does like to lead us down the dark side of memory and psyche, does he not?

So, to narrative perspective. There's an interesting use of photos to cue the reason for Major Jang's dismissal from the case. After a "cross-examination" gone awry, as Jang tries to confront both Oh and Su-Hyok with evidence that undermines their deposition, Botta hands Jang her plane ticket home. It turns out the S. Korean general (who was supposed to be Jang's nemesis from the outset) has discovered she is the daughter of an exiled N. Korean general of the Korean War in the early 50s. To cue the historical flashback, including footage presumably of the war, Botta hands Jang pictures that apparently the S. Korean general amassed showing that Jang's father was a N. Korean POW. The pictures are grainy, and from (presumably) the 50s. This cues the cut away to the war footage, and Botta's voice-over explaining how Jang's father came to marry a Swiss woman in Argentina. Along with the voice-over is music that signals the motif of "realization"--unbeknownst to the character, there was something else going on, and he/she was actually involved in the action in ways that s/he didn't realize before. This music, if I recall correctly, is also used when the pangs of conscience bring forth a repressed memory, that changes the course of action (like Su-Hyok shooting himself as he remembers shooting Jung).

This issue of objective reality--as a historical chronotope, and not just biographical one--as a deep imprint on memory is widespread in the Chan-Wook Park movies I've seen so far. Think of Oh Dae-Su seeking out the weird parapsychologist who used to hypnotize him during his captivity at the end of "Oldboy". He wants her to help him erase the discovery that he fell in love with his own daughter, in a paternal form of the oedipal (also perspective of the father, rather than the daughter). How to get the truth to not reach her ears, so she can continue to be innocent of the poison started by his comments regarding Woo-jin Lee and his sister. Of course, like Sophocles Oedipus (who poked out his own eyes to punish himself at the discovery of truth), Oh Dae-Su cuts out his own tongue. A more appropriate metonymy for how speech can kill.

Ok, but I wander. So the photos cue the historical sequence. It really doesn't do much work, apart from explain Jang's sudden dismissal--Jang is untouched by this realization, and continues to be the intrepid hunter of truth. The next flashblack occurs when Jang confronts Su-Hyok with some facts she has picked up. They are in one of the NNSC (neutral nations security committee) offices, and Jang explains how she has figured out that the four soldiers were friends: she saw a sketch of Su-Hyok's girlfriend in Jung's sketchbook ("he liked to sketch his friends' girlfriends", we learn earlier in the movie). Then she pushes him to tell the rest of the story of the tragic incident by promising not to turn in her evidence--and she forces Su Hyok to spill the beans as a means to save Oh (Kang-Ho Song really held this one together with his play of Oh). Cut to Su-Hyok's face, and we get the final piece of the "truth" about the incident. Except for the little part which leads Su-Hyok to kill himself--Chan-Wook Park has to draw that out a little more.

So where I feel vindicated is that yesterday I had a sneaking suspicion that the cut to Major Jang's face before the cut to Shun-Shik's to the flashblack might be a way to compose a perspective that showed the dawning of the truth for Maj Jang. And it seems to have turned out that way.

Notice that while the revelation about Major Jang's past doesn't really do anything to her--in fact, she's almost more jolly towards the end, having been vindicated unofficially at least--the revelations drive both Su-Hyok and Shun-Shik to suicide. Oh, on the other hand, can also remain the same. He goes back to being the career soldier, who knows how to handle himself under tension. The soldier that Su-Hyok was believed to be.

So after seeing 4 Chan-Wook Park films, I can safely say--he thinks that the truth is better left unrevealed, at least part of the time.

Final notes: according to IMDB, this movie is being remade into Joint Security America--and the tension is b/w US Marines and Mexican special forces!!! Oh yeah, no doubt people will easily buy into that one. After all, the Cold War backdrop of the civil war b/w Communist North Korea and Capitalist South Korea--which has now been the most heavily guarded border since 1953--is exactly the same as the relation b/w the US & Mexico. Hasn't the US-Mexico border region been more explored by, say Orson Welles' "A Touch of Evil", or the more contemporary "Traffic", or even "21 Grams" & also in one of the subplots of "Babel". Apparently there's also the 1949 "Border Incident", which I haven't seen. Is this remake anything more than a propaganda play for building a wall on the border, as the Bush administration and many Republican politicians are seeking? (I don't actually believe that). Wouldn't a sea-borne version between US & Cuba, perhaps even set during the Bay of Pigs crisis, be a little more workable? Or, will the issue be transformed into one of drug-smuggling or human-smuggling, which seems to be the general association with that border for most Americans? I wonder how the flashing back will be handled there...

IMDB also claims that the movie references "Rashomon" in its use of differing perspectives, and that the tense gun pointing scene is a reference to the "Mexican Standoff" of Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs".

in the middle of watching Chan-Wook Park's "Joint Security Area"

So, this is my first post. I warn anyone who might stray here that I am an academic, and plan on paying a lot of attention to techniques for creating "perspective"--how a scene is conveyed as if from some angle on the events, whether that of the audience (us!), a character, an outside observer/narrator, or somehow blended. Having said that, my field has nothing to do with cinema, and I don't intend to treat my materials from any entrenched film studies tradition. I don't know any. This blog is to amuse myself.

Well, to the meat of the matter.

Btw, since I don't believe anyone will actually read this, I will not really do summaries or warn people about "spoilers." Sorry if you do, and you don't realize that.

It's late, and I should be sleeping already, but Chan-Wook Park's movies compel comments. I've not yet finished watching "Joint Security Area"--a film not on par with his tour de force "Oldboy"--but I'm already intrigued by an element of storytelling. Here's an interesting review, by the AV Club's Noel Murray, if you want a general plot line, with some good comments about technique and Chan-Wook Park's source for the idea. (I didn't realize that the film was released in the States with English dubbing, which I assume is horrible. I'm watching it in the original Korean, with English subtitles.)

On to why I'm compelled to comment. Chan-Wook Park frames two (well, three) extended sets of sequences by taking the audience to the perspective of the (supposedly Swiss-raised Korean) investigator. First, the investigator picks up the deposition of the South Korean soldier, flips it open, and then we go into the sequence which make up the official South Korean version of the "incident." (Just as an aside, the opening scene where Major Jang, the investigator is taken to meet the head of the "neutral" observers, the Swiss-German "armchair anthropologist" is just appallingly bad. It almost feels like a low budget James Bond rip-off, "your mission is very very delicate, the whole future of the world is in your hands" type stuff. Things improve dramatically when the movie switches to Korean.) Then, in parallel, when Major Jang goes across to the North, she similarly flips open the deposition of Oh, and we go into the sequence of scenes that relate the official North Korean version of the "incident."

So, although there are two tokens of this technique, it really comprises one kind, just mirrored on both sides of the border. Of course, this mirroring is crucial to setting up how Chan-Wook Park builds up the muddy issue of the border separating "brothers" (South's term) or "comrades" (North's term), and how the border can still be crossed by an act of generosity (saving Su-Hyok from the land mine) and then some gift exchanges (music, a lighter, food from the South). I.e., the rank and file soldiers don't truly hate each other, and can get along...only when the power of the institutionalized struggle gets in the way does the shit hit the fan.

The next moment of this flashing back occurs when Sung-Shik throws himself out the window of the neutral army's building, and lands on the pavement (I don't know whether he ultimately dies yet, since I haven't finished watching the movie). Here again Major Jang (or Jean, according to IMDB) is involved in framing the oncoming sequences. Which show the "objective reality" of what happened prior to the incident, and which isn't contained in the previously mentioned, official "depositions." Major Jang hears the crash of the breaking window, and rushes to see Sung-Shik on the pavement, and then he goes into the flashback, and the events return to how the soldiers made friends prior to the "incident." (Sung-shik was being interrogated by Major Jang's host in the floor above where she was interrogating Su-Hyok, i.e., in exact parallel, as a pan out of the building and back in shows).

Now, in the first set of flashbacks, cued by Major Jang picking up the deposition and reading, the perspective is entirely the "official story" which will then be criticized by Major Jang as she finds facts inconsistent with it. Indeed, the whole movie is then strung along by the tension of not knowing how the incident occurred, and Chan-Wook Park's James-Bond like intro does give a small red herring, the idea of some great conspiracy or evil occurring...not the prosaic links of friendship between bored soldiers.

The second flashback technique--Major Jang looking down on Sung-shik, then cut to Sung-Shik looking upwards blankly, then cut to the "objective reality" of how the soldiers made friends--complicates the relation of the audience to objective reality infinitely. Because Major Jang, our guide into the discovery of objective reality, doesn't yet know the story, and Sung-Shik's face is the last to be seen. His face suggests that it is him remembering the next (quite long and elaborate) set of scenes showing how the soldiers became friends. And yet there are elements in the sequence that he didn't partake in, since they happened to Su-Hyok. So what is the perspective thus created? Is it Su-Hyok's, via Sung-Shik, once he has told the latter the whole story? Is it also not a bit of Major Jang's, as she is slowly coming to realize that there's more to the story?, and thus is continuing her quest for the objective reality--to the point that Sung-Shik throws himself out a window as evidence is compiled against him. Is it not also a bit of an omniscient story-teller, who saw the whole thing develop? We the audience are of course party to all of them.

In the end, the tension of the movie isn't what the awful intro, with the armchair anthropologist/general, set it out to be--it isn't the possibility of igniting war between the heavily armed Koreas, and possible other interested countries. The tension comes from the lack of knowledge about how the "incident" occurred, and the investigator's attempt to troll the memories of the shocked and troubled soldiers, who once spared each others' lives enough to befriend one another, and now went back to killing each other. It is the impossibility of sharing one's perspective that ultimately provides the oomph to this flick, and Chan-Wook Park's framings of flashback sequences are crucial to ratcheting this up.

From the midpoint of the film, the question is whether Major Jang's truth will actually help in any way to bridging past and present?

Stay tuned...