영화 <웰컴 투 동막골>의 토포필리아

Abstract

A place is a haven for the values an individual gives, a quiet center where one can feel affection and safety. Through various direct and indirect human experiences, unknown spaces are transformed into intimate places, which transform unfamiliar abstract spaces into concrete places filled with meaning. And as time passes and experiences accumulate, the love of a place is defined as “topophilia,” which is formed by accumulating positive emotions and feelings toward the place through the process of giving special meaning and value. Topophilia belongs to the realm of concrete human experience, and attachment to a place is formed and acquired through personal memory and learning, not through absolute imagination. Accordingly, this study focuses on the film <Welcome to Dongmakgol>, which seeks psychological changes in the characters in the film by clearly revealing the sense of place and builds the film’s narrative in a dense manner. Dongmalgol in the movie functions as a place of life and an important element that reflects the inner world of the characters and embodies the theme, and is a place that serves as a source of emotions for the soldiers, giving them a sense of warmth and stability toward humanity. And through this love of place, the film gradually visualizes the process by which the soldiers, who had been wandering as strangers until now, are recognized as human beings and become objects of love and a source of joy and certainty. This not only affects the narrative device of the film, but also plays a role in enhancing the persuasiveness of the main message the film is trying to convey. And in the process of the soldiers gradually assimilating into Dongmakgol, the subject feels a sense of belonging to the place and gradually forms an existential interiority in which he identifies with himself. For soldiers who have experienced this experience of existential interiority, protecting Dongmakgol, which is like their alter ego, is no different from protecting the soldiers themselves. In this way, Dongmakgol is an element related to specific life and an important driving force that mediates geographical imagination, and is used as a psychological space that is replaced by the character’s self-consciousness. Accordingly, this paper investigates the emotional connection between the characters and Dongmakgol through an attempt to examine Dongmakgol as a place of healing in the movie, and explores the meaning and influence of Dongmakgol. In addition, by linking Dongmakgol’s identity as a place to the internal psychology of the soldiers, it seeks to reestablish the relationship between the film’s narrative and the place.