Epitaph

Directed by the Jung brothers, Jeong Sik and Jeong beom Sik, Epitaph is a visually pleasing and well-made horror movie, which narrates itself during the period of Japan’s annexation in Korea. The film consists of three different stories that occur each with different characters within the Anseng hospital.  The fact that the setting is in a hospital creates tension and the feeling of unconsciousness and being trapped inside(until the patients are cured).  The story of the mother ghost and the girl who often has nightmares about her mum stood out to me the most, as it was the most horrifying, yet adequately represented South Korea of the colonial period. The mother’s constant haunting reappearances appeared to be a threat and horror to the girl. However, later throughout the plot, it is noticeable that it was all because of love(love where she did not want to leave the girl lonely) that the ghost of the mother kept reappearing. Similar to Jenny’s opinion, it seemed like each character of the car incident, the girl, stepfather, and mother represented colonized Korea, Japan, and pre-colonized Korea accordingly.

Several cinematographic techniques, such as camera angles and composition in the movie stood out to me as they intensified the fear. Characters in the movie are often looking through a dark, ambiguous hole(similar to BongJoonho’s film technique in Memories of Murder), which represents their curiosity as well as investigations they seek for identifying the unknown.

Furthermore, the use of color also seems to represent the colonial period. As the mother carries the girl outside of the car and on the white snow, we are able to see the contrast between the blood red colors and the white of the snow. This perhaps represents the horribly scarred and physically as well as psychologically hurt and fragmented citizens of Korea during the time of annexation.  Overall, the use of horror genre to represent the colonial period succeeded in that it made the me scared, alone, and emotional, perhaps what the Korean citizens were feeling during the colonization.