Epitaph

            The Jung Brothers made a bold statement in their debut film, Epitaph by contrasting the colonial past and modernity of Korea through violence, horror, and death. In the beginning of the film, the audience feels “the newness of the times” (Koselleck 1985; Osborne 1995, 10) of modernity. For instance, the very first scene consists of students in a lecture hall, watching a clip of brain surgery from the colonial period by an overhead projector. I thought this a brilliant example of modernity as a “qualitative transformation from the past” (Reddy 2007). The students are not only learning through the latest technology at that time but also they are learning to become even better doctors than the ones from the colonial period.  When the story shifts to the colonial past, the audience notices the change in violent and dark scenes through horrifying plots, disturbing visual and sound effects.  For example, various minor chords in high octave, a dead magpie on a footstep, and bloody murdering scenes, all contribute to making this time period very aggressive and savage. Even the editing of Epitaph contrasts the modernity and colonial period by going back and forth in time throughout the film. I think that the Jung Brothers chose to use such violent scenes in order to imply how difficult and unfortunate this colonial time was for Korean citizens during the Japanese occupation of Korea.

Nevertheless, there were some parts in the movie that I could not fully interpret. For instance, what did the snail represent in this film? Is the snail symbolizing the long history of Japanese occupation of Korea? Another part that I would really like to discuss during our class is why did the writer of this film decide to switch the roles of husband and wife at the very end of the movie? It was complicated that it was actually the wife that was killing Japanese soldiers but what was the point of reversing the characters at the end? Is it simply to imply that the wife was not sane or is there a hidden message? Overall, I really enjoyed this film because of its beautiful cinematography and interesting sound effects; however, I don’t think I will choose to watch it again because it was very graphic and violent for me!