South Korea 2024, 114 min, English and Korean, Hebrew & English subtitles
The film opens with Seoul’s “Freedom Center,” a formidable brutalist building that has become synonymous with South Korea’s anti-communist regime. Though largely abandoned today, its influence still endures. In democratic Korea, the civil war has morphed into a war of images, one that has forged an impregnable, unambiguous reality for its people. In this lyrical, insightful, and skillfully-edited essay, Kim Mooyoung analyzes a wealth of visual materials, intercutting newsreel footage with surprising, at times poignant, and often utterly absurd excerpts from South Korea’s distinguished film history, exposing the chasm between history and propaganda, and revealing how echoes of the past have been meticulously preserved and replicated in South Korea’s present. Accompanied by captivating commentary, all these elements fit together harmoniously, leaving us both astonished and unsettled by ideology’s terrifying ability to hit hardest when veiled.
Previous Festivals: Berlinale, Busan International Film Festival, Seoul Independent Film Festival
