Intercut Between Color and Black and White in 'A Single Spark'

 A Single Spark, directed by Park Kwang-su, is a film based on the life of Jeon Tae-il who immolated himself in 1970 in protest of workers' conditions in Korea. Director Park portrays this story in the words of the semi-fictional character Kim Young-soo who, five years later, is writing a book about Jeon Tae-il while running from the government because of his own activism with the student movement. In such, the film is not an accurate account of the life of Jeon Tae-il, but a portrayal of his significance to Korea and to the democratization movement. In such, the English title, A Single Spark serves as a gruesome reminder of the Jeon’s self-immolation, but most of all his significance for the student movement (Udongkwon).

The intercut between the story of Kim and Jeon is where director Park discusses this theme. By applying a black and white shots of Jeon’s and color shots of Kim’s accounts the story is split between the two. However, the color separation is not consistent and it is in these segments, where Jeon suddenly is portrayed in color, the significance of “Jeon Tae-il”, the symbol and not the person, is truly revealed. In this brilliant piece of story telling, through film technique and editing, director Park, in a very subtle way, connects the Jeon Tae-il to the events that happens five years later.

The first significant example of this is when Kim, on the run from the authorities, is in hiding in a boiler room. In this isolation, Kim, in a color shot, is portrayed almost in black and white with a blue tint. While writing on Jeon Tae-il’s biography he finds himself standing face to face with Jeon Tae-il and by following him he is brought into the light where Jeon Tae-il, in color, is walking to the mining camp where he also is in this state of isolation before his return to activism. In this shot Jeon is truly portrayed as a symbol of strength and motivation for the isolated Kim, who himself is representing the student movement.

The second scene is when Jeon lights himself on fire and runs through the street. As Kim Kyung-hyun writes in her chapter on A Single Spark, the whole scene is anti-climatic and is only a fictional representation of the actual event (118).  However, she argues that: “In the differences between Chon's "actual death" and Kim's rewriting of it lie the issues of representation and remembrance that A Single Spark questions.” (119). My opinion is that this scene serves as the way Kim, as the films representative of the student movement, sees the martyrdom of Jeon.

The last scene where Jeon is represented in color underlines the link between the student movement and Jeon. When Kim revisits the street where Jeon immolated himself, we see a close-up shot of the hand of a person clinging on to the book Kim has written about Jeon. Following the person down the street we see that it is Jeon who himself is holding onto the book. In such, Jeon and his activism is reborn through his initiative in the following self-sacrifice of the student movement.

Kim, Kyung Hyun. The remasculinization of Korean cinema. Duke University Press, 2004.

Lee, Namhee. "The South Korean student movement: undongkwon as a counterpublic sphere." Korean Society: Civil society, democracy and the state(2002): 132-164.