Sang-soo Im - Geuddae geusaramdeul AKA The President's Last Bang (2005)

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/9171/presidentslastbangqm5.jpg

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/5333/imdbimage.jpg

A film about the last night of authoritarian president Park Chung-hee, who was shot by his head of intelligence on October 26, 1979. The subject of major controversy and lawsuits in Korea, which was also invited to screen in the Director's Fortnight section at the 2005 Cannes International Film Festival.

Some have referred to Im Sang-soo's The President's Last Bang as "the most political film in Korean history." Certainly, few works have stirred up the same level of heated public debate as this portrayal of the night when Park Chung-hee -- an authoritarian president who took power in a 1961 military coup and held it until 1979 -- was shot and killed by his chief of intelligence. Although Korea has changed beyond recognition in the 25 years since Kim Jae-gyu pulled the trigger, Park's legacy remains an unresolved question for much of the Korean populace. Complicating the matter, Park's daughter now leads Korea's centre-right opposition party, ensuring that the historically themed Last Bang would be read as a comment on the present as well as the past.

The film itself has got somewhat lost in the controversy surrounding its release, at which time a judge from the Seoul Central Court ordered that four minutes of documentary footage be removed, since it might "confuse" viewers as to what is fact and what is fiction. The footage -- clips of anti-government protests shown at the film's opening, and images from Park's funeral that accompany the end credits -- were important to the overall work, and the four minutes of black screen which appear in their place eave the audience with an altogether different viewing experience.

The President's Last Bang Many have viewed Last Bang as a bit of character assassination aimed at the late President Park. An observant reader on the Koreanfilm.org discussion board noted that this was more or less equivalent to making a movie about George Bush snorting cocaine and driving drunk in his youth. The most offensive bits may actually sneak past the radar of many foreign viewers: the tendency of Park and his advisors to speak in Japanese, his portrayed fondness for Japanese enka songs, his habit of holding late night drinking parties with young girls, and his cowardice in the face of danger (well, the latter two are easy to catch). Just why Park's fondness for things Japanese should be so controversial requires a short history lesson, but suffice it to say that he is being portrayed as being associated and aligned with Korea's former colonizers.

Personally, I love the George Bush analogy and I agree that director Im was out to settle a few scores with the many admirers of the former president. However I can't accept that this is the film's key purpose. If that were the case, there would be no reason to structure the film in the unusual way it is put together. Namely, the emotional climax -- Kim blowing Park's brains out -- occurs not at the end, but halfway through the film. As much of the plot is devoted to what happens after the event, as to what comes before.

Few filmmakers adopt such a strategy, though Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter (1997) comes to mind as another example of a film with its emotional climax in the middle, rather than the end. The unusual structure has opened Last Bang up to criticism, with many maintaining that the work loses its energy or focus in the second half. The result for me, however, is to make it much more of a thinking film than an emotional film. And I maintain that there is enough going on here to justify it as an object of study. (I should also note here in fairness to the director that the documentary footage that is meant to be screened over the end credits does pack a complex emotional punch. Without it, the film's ending is emotionally monotone.)

I read Last Bang as a film about history. Of course, it covers a specific historical incident, and also tries to capture the mindset of an authoritarian nation (the press kit calls it a film about "when a military society turns the gun on itself"). But most of all, this is a film about a small group of individuals who consciously decide to change history. To what extent can an individual, or a small group of people, really do that? This is what I think the movie is asking.

The process of unleashing change is portrayed as being unexpectedly simple. Im Sang-soo brings the events of this famous night down to a very human level, through evocative details concerning the many personalities involved, and through his liberal use of black humor (a perfect antidote to the chest-thumping heroism we see in other Korean films based on history). Thus, the final act that brings down the Park era comes across as being quite matter-of-fact.

Yet in the chaos that follows the shooting, we gradually realize that Kim Jae-gyu's ambition to transform Korean history is up against forces more powerful than the slain dictator. An individual can set loose the forces of history, but cannot control them. Those who are familiar with Korean history will know that Park may have made his exit on that night, but the oppressive military dictatorship lived on in another form.

In this sense the character of Kim Jae-gyu, portrayed masterfully by Baek Yoon-shik (Save the Green Planet), may be Im Sang-soo's greatest creation. Every sentence uttered by Baek resonates beyond its immediate context, and his actions embody a prototype that reappears in many guises throughout history. True, the entire ensemble cast is nothing short of fantastic, including a career-reviving performance by Han Suk-kyu, but everything in the film boils down to Baek's character.

Three cheers to Im Sang-soo. In making this leap from sex (a preoccupation of his previous films Girls Night Out, Tears and A Good Lawyer's Wife) to politics -- perhaps not such a long leap after all? -- he has given Korean cinema a much-needed shot in the arm. Now, the only work remaining is to get this film back from its censors. Unlike decisions made by the ratings board, the court's ruling applies internationally as well as in Korea, so it is illegal to screen the uncut version of the film anywhere in the world. Godspeed to the appeals process. (link)

top Movie Channel

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Sang-soo Im - Geuddae geusaramdeul AKA The President's Last Bang (2005)

0 comments:

Post a Comment

HIstory

Category

About Me

Followers