임권택 감독의 시선을 통해 (재)발견되는 부산의 로컬리티

Abstract

The field of film studies needs to refer the results of the study on the locality of Busan and to open a new domain of film studies by relocating the focus of the film studies to the locality of Busan. This paper is a small attempt for the new film studies, and examines the ways of representation of the locality of Busan and their social meanings in Im Kwon-taek's four films: Snow Falls on the Bloody Street (1971), The General’ Son (1990), The General’ Son 2 (1991), and Raging Years (2004). What I notice in this paper is that they seem to deal with one single subject. The ways in which the films represent Busan ​​include in a meaningful way Im's consistent insight and question of what kind of city Busan is. Moreover, the films capture the core of the locality of Busan in a completely different way, reflecting the span of decades. Even though it was made in the early 1970s when Busan enjoyed its heyday, Snow Falls on the Bloody Street deals with who live in the realm of darkness. By doing so, the film asks who is the genuine maker of Busan's heyday and what their lives are like. The son of General (1990), The General’ Son 2 (1991) and Raging Years (2004), which were made 20 years later, co-opt the historical spaces representing Busan's specific locality. Some of them are places where Busan’s lower-class workers used to live and enjoy culture. The others are historical buildings whose functions change as they pass through the modern epoch of Korea. Interestingly, Im borrowed the space of Busan's lower-class workers in the most dangerous period of Busan's economy, and made movies in which a tramp in the beggar village becomes a hero and a trivial poor person lives a hard enduring life in the rough world. Those films seem to remind the viewers of who created the brilliant days of Busan and indicate where the power of Busan to break through the crisis is. Im pulls Busan's space into his films in his own way, and captures the locality of Busan which has not been recognized or overlooked even by the city or citizens of Busan.