After watching Obalt’an,
I was left with an unresolved understanding of the film’s stance on the Cage of
Conscience. Although it is a strong theme throughout the entirety of the film, the film's overall attitude towards it is ambiguous. The recurring idea of the Cage of Conscience was first brought up after Yong
Ho finds out Sul Hee has died and has finally had enough of the lousy and
chronically dismal state he has been in ever since returning from the war. He
releases his frustration on Chol Ho and asks why they even live in a Cage of
Conscience if this is the type of life that it provides, and he exclaims that
he wishes he cheated in life earlier.
Yong Ho criticizes his brother, bringing up the fact that Chol
Ho “cannot even afford a monthly bus pass or to have his rotten teeth
pulled, but nevertheless tries to maintain…ethics such as diligence and
integrity” (Cho 112). We see a man who has hit rock bottom
and who has decided to break out of his Cage of Conscience to finally make a change in his life. Yong Ho calls his friend to rent a Jeep for a bank robbery, during
which he’s literally standing behind cages. While he’s calling to prepare for his heist,
he is standing behind a wall of caged birds, which I think alludes to Yong Ho’s
frustration with the Cage of Conscience and represents his preparation to finally
break through it. But as we see later, his break through his Cage of Conscience doesn't turn out well... Does this then suggest that attempts to break through the Cage of Conscience are futile and only lead to more suffering? Is the director trying to tell us that it's a bad idea to break it?
I'm not so sure.
Remember when Chol Ho accepted money from his
sister for the hospital bills that he would need to pay for his wife’s delivery? I found that scene so ironic because the money that he accepted from her was most likely made from Myong
Sook’s “encounters” with the American soldiers. His sister’s escape from her
Cage of Conscience is what actually pays for the hospital bills that Chol Ho cannot
afford himself. And as interestingly pointed out by Eunsun Cho in this week’s reading, “[Myong
Sook] is the only one among the main characters of the film who survives
without being completely lost” (Cho 105). What then is this film trying to tell us about the Cage of Conscience in this time period? Does it condone corruption
and undermine certain ethics like honor and integrity when times get tough?
In the film, Chol Ho gets to see two very different results of breaking the Cage: one ending in his brother's imprisonment and inevitable death, and the other ending in his sister's relative financial stability and survival. This ostensibly forms a stance in the film that neither condemns nor condones the loss of conscience, and it puts Chol Ho in a position that makes him the deciding factor of the film's attitude on it. Will he choose to go down the same road as his brother and sister knowing of the different consequence that may arise? Or will he remain caged by his conscience and continue living in his current state? And at the end of the film when an emotionally shattered Chol Ho stumbles through the streets in a daze and eventually gets in the cab, he remembers Yong Ho's quote about how if he could be a little richer, he'd be willing to break through the Cage, and he wonders if maybe Yong Ho was right. But as we never get to see what Chol Ho does with his life after this scene, we'll never know which path he will choose...
Cho, Eunsun.
"The Stray Bullet and the Crisis of Korean Masculinity." South
Korean Golden Age Melodrama: Gender, Genre, and National Cinema. Nancy Abelmann and Kathleen McHugh. Detroit:
Wayne State University Press, 2005. 99-116. Print.
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