“The Safety of South Korea has Fallen”: A New National Trauma of Collapsed Community Ethics in Korean Disaster Films

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국영화학회
· 수록지 정보 : 영화연구 / 84호 / 229 ~ 258페이지
· 저자명 : 성경숙

초록

This article focuses on the newly introduced Korean national trauma and the country’s cinematic criticism of society and people from different social groups, as they have been represented in the recent releases of Korean disaster films, Train to Busan (2016) and Tunnel (2016). Both films depict manmade disasters which happened in modern South Korean society characterized with an absence of justice and are remembered as traumatic by South Korean citizens. They led to a wide discussion in the public that tried to find the reasons and solutions related to such issues, as well as to a self-criticism revolving around the social system and authorities. Particular attention is paid to the question of which background these socially based disaster films are produced in and how/why they have received the enthusiastic support of the Korean audience, from a film sociological perspective. It is interesting to observe that the Korean disaster film belonging to the blockbuster film plays a role not only as one of the important entertainment film genres which aim is to make the audience ‘pleasant.’ Depicting traumas of the modern South Korean society, these films serve also to criticize society, ‘using a powerful method for reporting and getting collective empathy.’ The traumas based on the real events the safe distance between physical and cinematic reality is broken, the films remind the audience of the traumatic experiences which don’t exist only in the film, but also could be theirs. For the audience these disaster films show that their subjects should not be forgotten, silenced or repeated. The audience’s intention toward these disaster films may be to reconfirm the ethical attitudes of humanity, beyond the criticism of an emergency situation, and anticipate are a reborn nation.

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