Culture industry should respect diversity,
peculiarity
``This is the most outstanding achievement in the 100-year history of Korean filmmaking, which wrote a new history itself.” Nothing sums up the significance of the Korean movie ``Pieta” winning the top prize in the Venice Film Festival Saturday better than these words of Kim Dong-sup, a veteran industry figure.
Korean directors, actors and actresses have received various awards in the three major film festivals, which also include Cannes and Berlin, but the best film prize has always been beyond their reach.
Most ironic was that the nation’s film industry has realized its long-cherished dream thanks to a director it has almost left out. Kim Ki-duk, a former factory worker with little formal education in both life and filmmaking, has made it almost singlehandedly through sheer devotion and determination.
Based on his lowly life of 52 years, which is more dramatic than most films, Kim has stuck to one subject _ fallen humanity and its redemption.
His often violent, gruesome dramas nearly always feature ``bad” guys and their ``victimized” girls, and women in his films are either saints or street walkers. All this has made most Korean filmgoers with lighter tastes, and even many film critics, especially women, take some distance from his more artistic movies. Little wonder that Kim was alienated by film distributors and financial sponsors.
Kim nearly gave up but came back by combining artistic and popular appeal in his latest masterpiece produced in just three weeks at a fraction of the cost of commercial films. Kim’s success, as an artist and as a person, is thanks to this ability to overcome adversity by finally embracing his critics and accepting their views while not seriously compromising the essentials of his own artistic pursuit, instead of remaining as a perennial complainant as he did until a few years ago.
This also shows why domestic filmmakers cannot readily congratulate Kim’s success for bringing honor to the entire industry. The fact that Kim was far more popular in Europe than in his own nation says much about the cultural parochialism and snobbery in this country, which dominantly prefers the half-baked Korean imitations of Hollywood-style blockbusters to small-scale, independent films that delve into human nature and social problems in search of solutions.
The domestic film industry and its distribution system is no exception from the nation’s overall industrial structure, in which some giant distributors monopolize the market with commercial films, leaving little breathing space for smaller, independent competitors. It would be no coincidence that Kim’s Venice-winning film is about the cruel injustice of modern Korean capitalism and its dismantling of traditional values, such as family.
Film industry people here must be buoyed by Kim’s feat and vow to use it as inspiration to enable another launch of Korean movies. For that to happen, however, both filmmakers and audiences need to accept what is different, even challenging, to what they think is good and normal.
Otherwise, Korea will hardly be able to see a second or third Kim Ki-duk.
``This is the most outstanding achievement in the 100-year history of Korean filmmaking, which wrote a new history itself.” Nothing sums up the significance of the Korean movie ``Pieta” winning the top prize in the Venice Film Festival Saturday better than these words of Kim Dong-sup, a veteran industry figure.
Korean directors, actors and actresses have received various awards in the three major film festivals, which also include Cannes and Berlin, but the best film prize has always been beyond their reach.
Most ironic was that the nation’s film industry has realized its long-cherished dream thanks to a director it has almost left out. Kim Ki-duk, a former factory worker with little formal education in both life and filmmaking, has made it almost singlehandedly through sheer devotion and determination.
Based on his lowly life of 52 years, which is more dramatic than most films, Kim has stuck to one subject _ fallen humanity and its redemption.
His often violent, gruesome dramas nearly always feature ``bad” guys and their ``victimized” girls, and women in his films are either saints or street walkers. All this has made most Korean filmgoers with lighter tastes, and even many film critics, especially women, take some distance from his more artistic movies. Little wonder that Kim was alienated by film distributors and financial sponsors.
Kim nearly gave up but came back by combining artistic and popular appeal in his latest masterpiece produced in just three weeks at a fraction of the cost of commercial films. Kim’s success, as an artist and as a person, is thanks to this ability to overcome adversity by finally embracing his critics and accepting their views while not seriously compromising the essentials of his own artistic pursuit, instead of remaining as a perennial complainant as he did until a few years ago.
This also shows why domestic filmmakers cannot readily congratulate Kim’s success for bringing honor to the entire industry. The fact that Kim was far more popular in Europe than in his own nation says much about the cultural parochialism and snobbery in this country, which dominantly prefers the half-baked Korean imitations of Hollywood-style blockbusters to small-scale, independent films that delve into human nature and social problems in search of solutions.
The domestic film industry and its distribution system is no exception from the nation’s overall industrial structure, in which some giant distributors monopolize the market with commercial films, leaving little breathing space for smaller, independent competitors. It would be no coincidence that Kim’s Venice-winning film is about the cruel injustice of modern Korean capitalism and its dismantling of traditional values, such as family.
Film industry people here must be buoyed by Kim’s feat and vow to use it as inspiration to enable another launch of Korean movies. For that to happen, however, both filmmakers and audiences need to accept what is different, even challenging, to what they think is good and normal.
Otherwise, Korea will hardly be able to see a second or third Kim Ki-duk.
No comments:
Post a Comment