영화 『꽃잎』에 나타난 “남성적 시선”과 “애도”의 문제

Abstract

Jang Sunwoo's A Petal is a highly controversial film for several reasons. One of the reasons is its treatment of the Gwangju Massacre of 1980, whose unofficial civilian casualties amounted to more than 3,000. Another reason for the controversy is the way the national tragedy is remembered in the movie. Most of the negative responses to this movie come from the feminist literary critics who felt uncomfortable with the way the heroine's body was appropriated in the movie for a representation of the afflicted nation. According to them, memories of the national tragedy are gendered in this film in such a way that female subjects are excluded from any kind of political or historical enlightenment. And also male characters are able to walk away saddened, yet enlightened, from the tragic scene of national trauma after carrying out a mourning for those who sacrificed their lives in the democratic uprising. What is galling to the feminist critics is that this mourning is carried out at the expense of the heroine's body and sanity. Another charge brought against the movie is that the body of the heroine is placed under a male gaze in order to cater to the voyeurism of the male audience. This paper, with due respect to the incisive feminist scholarship, disagrees with the feminist view of the gaze of the movie as being male. The issue raised by this paper is that the current scholarship on the movie has neither raised nor answered the question of whether or not the movie makes any distance from the male-centered and male-benefiting attempts at mourning. This paper points out that the mourning may be attempted by each of the male characters as well as the heroine, but it is destined to be incomplete. And being incomplete, the mourning fails to deliver to the mourners what it usually promises: freedom from guilt and peace. The conclusion of this paper is that the final message of this movie is a disturbing one that nobody is able successfully to carry out a mourning for the martyrs to the democracy of the nation.