패전 후 일본영화 속 재일조선인 연구: 영화 <벽 두꺼운 방(壁あつき部屋)>을 중심으로

Abstract

This study focuses on Class-B and Class-C war criminals as portrayed in the 1953 feature film Room with Thick Walls, the first post-war Japanese movie featuring Korean residents in Japan. This film depicts the horrors of war by illustrating the brutal violence inflicted by the Japanese on Koreans. However, instead of endeavoring to induce Japan to take responsibility for such wrongdoings, this film concludes by reaffirming Japanese victimization. While approaching the issue of colonial rule and the colonized people by featuring Class-B and Class-C Korean war criminals who represented the colonized subjects of Japan, this narrative structure remains silent as to the reality that this colonial issue extended to Korean residents in Japan after the war. In other words, although this film addresses the injury and violence committed by the Japanese during the war, it still could not separate itself from the ongoing postwar discourse that simply reports the horrors of war while framing the Japanese as victims. This film merely criticizes the reality that the reverse course was in process through Korean war criminals while minimizing or eliminating the issue of Japanese colonial rule by deflecting criticism toward the US. This film neglects to address the issues that the once-colonized Koreans have faced by being defined as Korean residents in Japan while emphasizing their solidarity with the Japanese, revealing a lack of essential recognition of the issues of Korean residents in Japan.