창작과 비평

The Works of Kim Yong-ha * , Ha Song-nan, and Hong Sang-soo *

Translated by KIm Yoo-sok

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5.

In thus reviewing the works of Kim, Ha, and Hong, whose aim is penetratingly to capture everyday life in the city in our times, I have paid special attention to their unceasing formal experimentation. This is because descriptive, narrative, and visual techniques are the formal aspects of both fiction and film and, at the same time, linked to these artists' world view or attitudes toward reality. Consequently, even as all three artists turn away from monolithic discourses such as "history" and "nation" and focus, instead, on miniature tales that revolve around the daily lives of urbanites, their works cannot but encompass world views and visions. Nor is "history" always such an immense thing, for, in Hong's The Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, the reconstruction of experience through memory is none but a process of shaping an individual's "history." And, in this process, extremely complicated relationships intervene, thereby bringing about all manner of changes. Nevertheless, the innermost basis hardly changes and the scars on it are difficult to heal.

Because there exists in art a sphere where the quality of a particular work depends on how it treats the lives of individuals, no artwork is necessarily "greater" or "better" just because it deals with monolithic narratives. Nevertheless, that many young artists of our era tend to shy away from the larger narratives created by our neighbors and from history itself is a cause for concern indeed. So, if I have been ungenerous in criticizing the fiction of Kim and Ha, it may have been caused by such concern. But the contrived or artificial aspects of these writers' works attest to their active experimentation and, at the same time, reveal their distrust of the life of the community. Consequently, despite their keen sense of the popular culture and virtual space of the metropolis, both Kim and Ha lack the natural voice that only those with faith in communal life are capable of possessing. In this respect, they would do well to take heed of the works of their antecedents, who, in spite of their emotional scars and brutal reality, have not lost their own voices.

In conclusion, I would like to point out that the success of the Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors is based on both Hong's unique visual aesthetics and his unsurpassed feel for language. Of course, it is obvious in this age of popular culture that cinema will continue to increase in importance. Nevertheless, in order for it to flower as a form of genuine popular art instead of degrade into the level of popular consumer culture, film must maximize its use of the artistic assets of drama and fiction. As for fiction, it must learn to make active use of the characteristics of cinema without losing its unique nature as fiction; for, otherwise, it may debase itself into novelistic versions of scenarios. The task facing film and fiction in an age of popular culture, then, would lie in competing against one another yet securing and developing an alternative sphere of art that can counter and overcome the consumerism and commercialism of mainstream popular culture.