Suffering for a dream

The movie “Blue Swallow” excels the most at presenting the discrimination of the Koreans by the Japanese community during the early 20^th century. The movie, however, starts with another theme in mind which is not very well articulated throughout the story: the feminist movement. We first see a little girl who argues with her father that she would rather die than not go to school (just because she is a girl); and this is shown probably to explain why she has left and moved to Japan to study. According to T. J. Yoo (pp. 60-61) the period of colonization was a step forward in helping Korean women to get school education (even so it is kept to a minimum of years). However, Park Kyung-won is not only shown as succeeding in finishing an important school but she is also presented as a successful and skillful pilot. A moment that shows how difficult of an achievement she has realized is during the high-altitude flight competition.  During the ascent the soundtrack creates a lot of tension and suspense, at the same time showing shots of the hospital where her friend is probably dying (reminding the audience how dangerous those stunts are). During the climax the music stops and for a few seconds there is no sound just showing the plain flying towards the sun. At this point Park Kyung-won has achieved the greatest dream of her life, and unfortunately it is also the point when the movie turns towards a more grim part of the story. Normally characters go through a struggle or through a hard period in which they have to fight and be victorious in order to achieve what they want in the end. In contrast “Blue Swallow” shows Park Kyung-won achieve her dream (of being a pilot) pretty easy, but the catch is that her struggles and hardships are going to come in the second part of the move. Maybe people need to be willing to lose something in order to achieve their dreams (not necessarily in this order).

 

 

Overall, all the obstacles that Park Kyung-won had, were not because she was a woman in a male dominated society, but it was because she was Korean in a Japanese society. Not only was she disadvantaged by the fact that the Japanese were in power as “the colonizers” but she was actually on Japan’s territory and she was obviously discriminated against. Seo Joon-seok explains how during that period the Korean ruling class was most of the time pro-Japan just because they recognized Japan’s power and they wanted to remain in charge (explaining the family situation of Han Ji-hyuk, who was forced to enroll in the Japanese military). 

 

Overall, the movie shows that modernity has come to Korea with the help of the involuntary Japanese colonization which gave Park Kyung-won the opportunity of being the first female pilot. However, the movie is also making us wonder if this type of advancement is really worth the struggles and sacrifices that the main characters have went through.