분단 트라우마를 횡단하는 2000년대 한국영화의 탈경계적 상상력

Abstract

This article discusses how the division films over 40 or more, produced after the year 2000 in conjunction with the success of Joint Security Area, have imagined the (im)possibility of reunification by examining the division of the Korean Peninsula. These division films substantially overturn the perspective of examining the differences and contradictions that penetrate politics, economics, society, and culture between North and South Korea, specifically addressing the issue of bordering in the era of post-Cold War and post-territorialism. These films envision a possible neighborhood-relationship between North and South Korea. However, the unification-oriented meaning conveyed by the films’ narrative, characters, spaces, and time is accompanied by inherent self-contradictory desires beneath the surface. Primarily, the reconciliatory mood between North and South Korea depicted in the division narratives is based on exclusivist nationalism stemming from border-consciousness. Furthermore, the protagonists embodying the essence of the unification subject, often hailing from North Korea, commit and sacrifice themselves within exceptional times and spaces where the border-consciousness holds no sway. In this context, they remain unmourned and unsymbolized. Nationalism carries a positive value as it by eliciting voluntary sacrifices necessary for (re)constructing the community, fostering moral values, upholding democracy, and nurturing a universal citizenship. However, the desires projected by South Korean audiences revealed through division films come to a halt in the aspiration of enjoying economic prosperity by effecting changes in North Korea as the beneficiary and extending the influence of capitalism across North Korean territory. Despite this, the ways in which division films have imagined reunification and bordering have continually evolved over the past two decades. In that sense, the recent film 6/45 seems to herald another chapter in the history of division films, as it introduces a new approach to envisioning a reunified community.