한국영화의 은자적 코스모폴리타니즘*: 배창호의 <적도의 꽃>을 중심으로

Abstract

This paper seeks to trace a unique trajectory of cinematic cosmopolitanism in Bae Chang-ho's 1982 film, Flower at the Equator, by examining the desire of Korean filmmakers to be recognized as equal and proud cosmopolitans on the global stage. This exploration occurs even before 1992, when “globalization” began to be fully promoted by the Kim Young-sam administration. In his third feature film, Bae presents a sophisticated film aesthetics acquired from watching innumerable foreign works, which distinguishes his refined camerawork and montage from that of his contemporaries. This visual style is seen as an aesthetic achievement close to Hollywood movies, which are considered to represent cinematic cosmopolitanism. However, Bae’s films have rarely been highly appreciated in the West, including the United States. This study thus calls Bae’s cinematic desire and style in Flower at the Equator “Hermitic Cosmopolitanism.” This term is chosen partly because watching a film requires a form of cosmopolitanism, yet it also involves the voyeuristic custom of viewing something in hiding. Additionally, 1980s South Koreans exhibited the cultural contradiction of being hermits who had not fully embraced cosmopolitanism. Moreover, Flower at the Equator features a protagonist embodying hermitic cosmopolitanism within the narrative. In the film, the hermit/observer, a contradictory character who pursues interactive love by escaping from seclusion, eventually abandons it, creating a complex and contradictory fracture in conjunction with the film's hermitic cosmopolitanism in terms of style and aesthetics. Furthermore, Bae’s lack of recognition in the West is particularly notable when his primary directing modern-drama films compared to his contemporaries who directed costume dramas and were awarded at European film festivals during the 1980s. This relative obscurity is a paradoxical effect of cosmopolitanism.