이창동 영화의 문화적 의미- 『오아시스』와 롤랑 바르트의 신화론, 『밀양』과 자크 데리다의 『죽음의 선물』

Abstract

The cultural significance of Lee Chang Dong's films, such as Oasis and Secret Sunshine, is officially recognized in world-class film festivals. The favorable appreciation of Lee Chang Dong's films by western culture is studied here in this paper especially in terms of the postmodern culture of Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida in order to suggest one of the potential directions for other Korean film directors as well as for Lee Chang Dong himself. Oasis can be meaningfully interpreted in relation with Roland Barthes' Mythologies, especially with the story of Gaston Dominici in “Dominici, ou le triomphe de la Littérature.” Dominici was 77-year-old farmer wrongly charged for the murder of Sir Jack Drumond's three family members mainly due to the lack of capacity to deal with the legal system, which is based upon the universal psychology developed within the cultural signification system of bourgeois society. Jong Du is a Dominici in Oasis presented by Lee Chang Dong. He is charged for the rape of Gong Ju in spite of their mutual consent mainly due to the lack of capacity to answer back the critical questions posed by the legal system. Gong Ju is in a little different position even though she is regarded and treated usually as another Dominici because she is paralyzed. Gong Ju reveals that she understands the cultural signification system of bourgeois society, when she says during the first serious conversation with Jong Do that she envies the working man. Lee Chang Dong suggests a way to counter-attack the cultural signification system of bourgeois society in this film entitled as Oasis, a representative 이만식 / 이창동 영화의 문화적 의미 111 image of the utopian dream of bourgeois society. He implies in the love story of Jong Du, idiot, and Gong Ju, cripple, that Oasis can be realized here in this bourgeois society even by the Dominicies. Secret Sunshine is a sensational film especially for Korean Christian society because of its inherent doubt about the validity of modern Christian faith. This film can be significantly related with Jacques Derrida's The Gift of Death which has the secret intention to implode the fundamental basis of Christianity raising serious doubt about the modern Christian creed of absolute submission to God's will regardless of concerned human condition. Jong Chan became Christian with the latent desire to develop a relationship with Shin Ae. He represents a typical Christian in modern Korea. Shin Ae became Christian soon after her son was kidnapped and brutally murdered. She cannot be satisfied with usual Christian life style because she is really desperate to find out the excuses for her lonely existence resulted from the deprivation of her son, her only hope of life. Later she tries to forgive the convict, who declares surprisingly that he is already forgiven and saved by God. The killer of her son convinces that he is saved by God without prior consent of the victim, whereas Shin Ae is still asking for the peace of mind in Christianity. She is forced now to search for the real significance of Christian faith, i.e., the postmodern Christian faith not to exclude human concern even in the process of absolute submission to God's will. There is no possibility in the human side to find out the final resolution of this religious problem. The director of this film suggests in the final scene of location in Mil Yang, whose meaning of its Chinese letters is Secret Sunshine, under the secret sunshine that it is only probable now to end only with the process of compromise between Jong Chan's modern Christian faith and Shin Ae's postmodern Christian faith. I think this is the Christian interpretation, suggested in Secret Sunshine by Lee Chang Dong and acknowledged by Cannes Film Festival, of Derrida's political positions, democracy which is the place of negotiation or compromise between the present forms of democracy and ‘democracy to come.’