어느 액티비스트의 고민: 이강현 감독의 <파산의 기술記述>이 말하는 인민의 모습

Abstract

This study analyzes the voice-over narration of director Lee Kang-hyeon’s The Description Of Bankruptcy to confirm that work was oriented towards activism. Preceding research approached director Lee Kang-hyeon’s works in a formalistic manner. In particular, some argue that director Lee Kang-hyun avoided the activist tendencies considered traditional in Korean independent documentaries and instead focused on making self－reflexive films. This evaluation has the limitation of disconnecting director Lee Kang-hyeon from the tradition of Korean independent documentaries. This study argues that The Description Of Bankruptcy, thematically inherits the tradition of Korean independent documentaries while innovating formally. And to prove this, we confirm that the people are meaningful and are subjectively constructed through voice-over narration in director Kim Dong-won’s Sanggye-Dong Olympics. This work, which tells the story of those who were sacrificed during the urban redevelopment process in the 1980s, uses the word “we” to describe the people in three ways. A people who speak self-referentially, a people who expands from people with lowercase letters to people with uppercase letters, and a people who are politically subjectivized. The Description Of Bankruptcy, which deals with the misery and suffering of Korean society after the IMF economic crisis through voice-over narration. According to the analysis results, a total of six voice-over narrations were used in this work, and each of them changes its content and form over the course of the film. The narrator’s tone changes from blunt to sharp. The narrator as a director and the subject of speech become aligned by using a unified subject. In this case, the first person plural Korean pronoun is used. Additionally, the narrator’s role as director gradually changes into that of researcher, historian, propagandist, and fable writer. These formally variable voice-over narrations combine with a montage of heterogeneous images to describe and analyze monotonous city life, the lives of economically bankrupt people, the lives of those who have been historically victimized. In conclusion, The Description Of Bankruptcy sharply criticizes the fact that the people were disintegrated. At the same time, this work emphasizes the need for reorganization of the people.