한국 인권영화의 흐름과 경향: 2000년대 인권영화를 중심으로

Abstract

Korea has made much progress on human rights over the decades and the situations now in 2009 are far better than before. However, despite the improved awareness of human rights issues in society and the diminished political oppression of human rights, there are still people who suffer under human rights violations. Recently, Amnesty International made a statement that there still remains room for improvements on human rights in Korea, which reminds us that there are sill many instances of human rights violations happening in Korea now. Films always reflect the times and what is happening in contemporary society and culture. Films also absorb the lives and sufferings of people living in the times. As a result, many films are interested in describing human desires and depicting the conflicting situations between the individual desires and the social systems. In those films, people’s desires are often oppressed by the social prejudices and systems. By analyzing the stories of human rights films we can draw on the implications of the times that they intend to deliver. Human rights films (the term recently gained wise use in Korea) since the 1980s have always been a watch-dog of our times. Films in the military regime depicted people who were victimized by the political oppression. Human rights films in the late 1990s sympathized those who lived to fulfill their small desires. Human rights films have taken different forms and characteristics reflecting the political and social changes of the times and constantly appealed to the difficulties that individuals face to live their everyday lives. This paper presents how Korean human rights films have changed in its characteristics by closely examining the film arassa directed by hwangwon and some other Korean films on human rights. The present paper has its significance in investigating the major trends and characteristics of human rights films in Korea, which have not gained much academic interest in the field.