Taebeck San Maek
South Korea,
1994, 168 min
Shown in 1998
CREDITS
- dir
-
Im Kwon-taek
- prod
-
Le Tae-won
- scr
-
Song Neung-han
- cam
-
Jong Il-song
- editor
-
Park Sun-dok
- cast
-
Ahn Sung-kee, Kim Myung-gon, Kim Kap-su
- source
-
Taehung Pictures, 3-1, Hannam-Don, Yongsan-gu, Seoul 140-210, Korea. FAX: 82-2-797-5125
-
COMMENTS
Im Kwon-taek appeared in person to receive the Akira Kurosawa Award.
OTHER
Taking full advantage of a relaxation in Korean censorship, Im’s epic drama opens up the shadowiest period in Korea’s modern history: the months in 1948-49 when Communists set up local governments in the southern towns Bulkyo and Yuro, and the state (aided and abetted by the U.S. Army) used fascistic militias to bring the region back under control. This dirty little secret was, in effect, a dress rehearsal for the coming Korean War. The drama’s core issues are obviously ideological, but Im’s central perception is that both Left and Right lost touch with the communities they were supposed to represent. Rather than get bogged down in politics, the film relates the ideological questions to family rivalries, sexual relationships, economic factors and cultural traditions. The thuggish Sangku leads a right-wing Youth League which persecutes households suspected of having leftist sympathies. His brother Sangjin heads the Communist insurgency, winning local support by redistributing land but proving too extremist to retain it. The schoolteacher Bumwoo (Ahn Sung-kee in his first role for Im in ten years) tries to mediate. The shaman Sohwa watches the tearing apart of her homeland and the deaths of many of her neighbors. Im’s film is less an exposé of war crimes than an elegy. It takes its tone from Kim Soo-chul’s endlessly haunting score.
—Tony Rayns
FACTOID #14
The longest film at the Festival, Sátántangó directed by Béla Tarr, screened in 1995. This Hungarian black comedy clocked in at 435 minutes (just over seven hours).
