The film Epitaph presents several intriguing power dynamics in its dialogue with the concept of modernity. These relationships echo relations with the state and with the subjugative act of modernizing by Japan on Korea. This entry will focus on the relationship between Dr. Jung Nam and Aoi.
One of the central relationships in the film is that of Dr. Jung Nam and
Aoi, his fiancée whom he has never met and whose body he must exhume. In one of
the most visually stunning scenes in the film, Jung Nam is dragged into Aoi’s
coffin by her spirit and acts out a lifetime with her in a series of tableaus.
These tableaus, which depict marriage, child rearing and sex juxtaposed with
images of the seasons, reflect a grand narrative of sexuality and childbirth.
This quintessentially “modern” view of marriage and married life breaks
down when Jung Nam wakes up in the middle of a kiss with Aoi’s naked corpse,
which is now covered in slugs. Here we see conflict between what Driscoll calls
“the erotic” and “the grotesque” (7). Aoi exerts psychological power over Jung
Nam and the audience through grotesque imagery and terror. Following this, she
forces him into her coffin and forces on him the grand narrative of married
life, exploiting his “creative, desiring life” (Driscoll 7). Ultimately, Jung
Nam dies at the end of the film because of Aoi’s destructive influence.
This power dynamic where Aoi (who is by no coincidence a Japanese woman)
drains Jung Nam’s life energy draws many parallels with Driscoll’s discussion
of the conflict between the erotic and the grotesque in Japan’s modernization. Jung
Nam’s sexual desire for Aoi takes place in the same space as his work, and we
are introduced to this desire through scenes of him working in the morgue;
clearly, his desire for her can be viewed along the same lines as “the vital
productivity of desire”. Aoi’s control of him, then, can be seen as “the
violent usurpation of this desire by hegemonic power” (Driscoll 10). Aoi
represents the Japanese modernizing imperialist, who, through the literal
grotesque and through imposition of grand narratives on Jung Nam, the
disenfranchised, young Korean, colonizes him.
Upon further examination, this dynamic of colonizer/colonized and
erotic/grotesque reveals more layers of complexity. Jung Nam’s desire for Aoi
is itself grotesque; when he meets her, she is already dead, and he does not
know that she was his fiancée. Furthermore, in wanting her despite--and perhaps
(though this is ambiguous in the film) because of--her grotesque power over
him, Jung Nam is allowing a subjugative power relationship. Driscoll says,
while discussing the philosophy of Kyoto University professor Tanabe Hajime,
that “although it was natural that colonized species would maintain a relation
of negativity to the imperial state, the most modern, self-conscious of
colonized subjects would recognize the transcendent superiority of Japan” (12).
This recognition and need for “universal belonging” results ultimately for
Tanabe in “self-consciously dying for Japan’s empire.” At the end of the film,
Jung Nam is visited by Aoi’s spirit and, after a conversation with her,
willingly dies. Perhaps Jung Nam simply dies of fatigue after being drained of
his vitality by Aoi; however, it is also possible that his death is a reflection
of Tanabe’s absolution, and that with it, he finally finds “universal belonging”
in the arms of his dead bride.
This power dynamic reflects a deeply complex perspective on modernity and
on Japan’s colonization of Korea. Despite the subjugative, grotesque and deeply
troubling nature of their “marriage,” Jung Nam finds a sense of belonging with
her that he has since been unable to find. And for him, her return at the end of the film--along with his inevitable reunion with her in death--come, in part, as a relief.
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