The film aimless
bullet (Yu Hyun-mok 1960) shows the life of war victims and family in
“liberation village” for war refugees in South Korea, after the Korean War. In
this film, audience can easily see the damages by War and gender role in 1960s.
Chulho’s (the
main character) mentally ill mother keep saying “let’s go” during the film
whenever she hears the roar of the jet plane. From this, audience can recognize
that she is a victim of the Korean War. During the Korean War, Chulho’s family
had to move from North Korea. However, the poverty lives in South Korea and
post war brings scars left by war. She denies her life in South Korea, and
hopes to go back to North Korea. As mentioned in the reading, the sentence “let’s
go” “[evokes] the hopelessness of the family,
their poverty, and their life without a future, a fate they futilely try to
escape” (Eunsun Cho, pg. 99).
The relationship
between Kyungsik and Myungsuk portrays the gender role in 1960s. Kyungsik and Myungsuk were engaged but he
refuses to marry because of his amputated leg. Kyungsik thought he could not do
his obligation and responsibilities as the head of a family because of his
amputated leg. Also, Chulho is suffering from his rotten teeth, but he does not
go see dentist because of the poverty. These scenes portray that most men went
out to work to scrape a bare living in 1960s. Also, the victims of the Korean
War, such as Kyungsik’s amputated leg, Chulho’s rotten teeth, chulho’s mom,
youngho’s wound, and other veterans, portrays aimless and hopelessness life of
men after the War. Additionally, death of Chulho’s wife, Myungsuk’s life as
foreigner’s wife portrays the sacrifices of women in 1960s.
The aimless and
hopelessness life of people after the Korean War also shown at the end of the
film, Chulho gets on the taxi, but doesn’t know where to go and murmuring “I really don’t know where to goo... I know I
have to go somewhere now… let’s go” Chulho was the person who said, “Go if you can” to his mentally ill
mother. However, at the end of the movie, Chulho denies his life after he hears
about his wife’s death and receive medical treatment at the dentist.
According to the
Alan Williams (2002), “some local cultures
can remain impervious to outside readings because producer and consumer share
few or no cultural knowledge” (pg. 40).
Personally, it is hard for me to fully understand and sympathize when
screening cultural related film from other countries. For example, I could
sympathize a lot with a short film we saw in class, “The weight of her”, which satires about the ‘appearance-obsessed society’ in Korea. As a student who prepared for the
entrance exam of ballet school, and had to care about the body weight, height,
and appearance (the success or failure was decided within one kilogram
differences between students), I could sympathize with the film and understand
why it still remain as one of the social issues in Korea. If I did not have an
experience about appearance-obsessed society, nor knowledge of Korean cultures,
it would have been hard for me to sympathize a lot with the film, I couldn’t
sympathize with the scene when few students interview together and the
interviewer judge interviewees based on their first appearance and when the
teacher checks the students’ body weight.
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