Jiseul: Kkeutnamji annheun sewol 2

I just saw Jisuel/Ji Seul at the US Premiere at Sundance 2013. Writer/Director Meul O. was there to introduce the film and do a brief Q&A as well. This is Meul O.'s first film made on a very low budget, shot in digital and released in Black & White. The film is about orders given by the US Military in 1948 (more on that later) to assume anyone outside of a specific zone is labeled as a communist and is to be shot on sight. Regardless of the historicity of the film, the movie itself has some major problems.

There are a number of characters on-screen, some of which we get to know but most of the characters aren't well defined, because of the black and white and their being in a cave most of the time it's hard to tell who is speaking. Because they aren't fleshed out I really didn't care about any of them, of course I don't want a pregnant woman to die or anything bad to happen to anyone because I have a heart but I didn't care enough about the characters or their struggle because they were mostly two- dimensional. Because of this the big emotional scenes of horror, laughter or sadness didn't have the emotional impact (if any) that it should have. The choice of it being a Black and White movie lead to some great artistic moments and scenes but it also caused some problems. There were titles throughout the film, apparently separating it into chapters (they didn't make add anything for me really, except mark that the film was going on a bit too long) they were always black Korean characters and sometimes I didn't even know they were on-screen except that the italicized subtitles were on-screen. Black-on black is quite hard to see.

The film is set on Jeju Island, the home of Meul O. and the financial sponsor of this film. The people on the island feel this tragedy has been ignored or forgotten by Korea and the world, and in fact, one of the problems is that there is little if any historical record of it taking place, especially the US government's involvement. The US government has denied any knowledge of the order and was not in charge of the South Korean military at the time as its presence was very limited. The subtitles at the end of the film went by pretty quickly but this affected the 120 islanders on Jeju who hid in caves, most of whom were killed and it stated that it is assumed this affected 30,000 others as well (I may have that wrong, the subtitles at the end went by too quickly). All of the violence is done by the hands of the South Korean soldiers but the emphasis on it being under the US Military's orders is made quite clear. The evidence is only a few first-hand accounts from survivors so we may never know the exact details of what happened but the movie assumes it as a matter-of-fact without explanation or evidence. I think a more-interesting film would have involved documenting the survivor's stories and trying to find evidence of the US's involvement in the order.

Saw this movie at sundance and it opened my eyes to another human atrocity. I'd never heard about this event before, and the movie held my attention as I watched the horrifying scenes unfold. It was probably as low budget as any film I've ever seen at sundance, and at times it left me disoriented as scenes didn't quite fit together. The sets were super minimal and the subtitles needed work. But over all it still connected with me and made me sympathize with a group of people I had never thought about before. The director didn't attend the screening which was unfortunate, because as I left I really wanted to ask why he/she portrayed the United States negatively. Paraphrasing and working from memory here, but at the beginning, the movie said the US ordered every person within 5km of the peninsula to be killed. Later on it said the military has never acknowledged their involvement. So, where is the evidence they ordered it if they won't acknowledge it? Must be other eyewitness accounts, right? You would think the movie would cover this subject, but it didn't. There is not a single American solder shown in the film, as all the violence in the film comes at the hand of Koreans. While the US military has certainly done regrettable things over the years, I have never learned of an outright order to kill everyone, including civilians. So, that sounded pretty bogus to me, and it made me wonder who was funding the film, and for what purpose. So, after the film, I looked it up on Wikipedia (source of all knowledge), and sure enough, the whole thing went down a few years prior to the Korean war when the US did not control the South Korean army. The situation, though inexcusable, was far more complex than presented in the film in terms of how the conflict began and escalated, and I didn't see anything that led me to believe the US was involved. There were 5 US military personnel on the island who documented what went on there, and the US didn't intervene. But to not intervene is not akin to giving orders or even fully understanding what is happening on the ground. Certainly, the US was worried about the spread of communism, so is it really surprising that they didn't choose to stand up against the South Koreans, who were there to fight against communism? So, I thought that whole was a bit disingenuous and a distraction from what I think the point of the film should have been- to document the evil acts that happened on the island. If the film wanted to focus on why these acts occurred and who was responsible, it should have investigated the issue more thoroughly and illustrated it with facts, not conjecture or propaganda. Was this movie filmed in North Korea?

Yeah, even such serious and riveting topics as bloody settling down the pro-Communist riot in 1948 pre-war Korea can be so boring when put to film. But this is what happened here to this black and white and very dull film that lingers slowly and leaves a metallic sour aftertaste and a burning question - why. It was not worth making and then watching this awfully boring, and what is worse replete with all pretensions to being an artsy kinda film with deeper meaning and anti-war message. It flopped and left a sour feeling of being having had by.

I have absolutely nothing good to say about this film. It is hands down the worst I have ever seen, and so far it is the only time I have ever left a cinema before the film was over. I endured 45 minutes while several other people walked out. Then I caved in from the torture and gave up. The direction is bizarre. The script is the most dire I have ever seen. There is no storyline. The dialogue is downright ludicrously weird. The constant howling of the wind really gets to you after a while. And after a cirka 10 minute scene of two soldiers standing on their heads right in front of each other while exchanging words that would make the biggest fruit loop in any sanatorium jealous, I had had enough.

I enjoy cultural masterpieces such as David Lynch's Mulholland Dr., but this ... ! Yes, I realise this may be "culture" on some level, but it sure is not for me in any way. Don't touch this with a 10 foot pole!