Welcome to Dongmakdol follows two groups of soldiers, one
group from North Korea, the other from South Korea, as they live harmoniously
with an American soldier and a village with no prior knowledge of the war.
According to Bevan, the village in which the troops occupy is an idealized
Korean identity, one in which the director of the film is trying to strive
towards. This identity is not solely based on unification of the two states.
I think one of the biggest aspects of this ongoing conflict
is the complete divide in current identities: a communist North and a
capitalist South. When considering unification at this point, there are so many
differences ideologies and lifestyles. Unification at this point would be at
least doubly as difficult considering all the effort needed to completely
change the mindset of one group of people. If the conflict has taught us
anything, its that the two sides are not willing to give in to the other, the
two states are founded upon the ideologies and do not want to lose this fight.
In Welcome to Dongmakdol, both sides put their issues aside
for the briefest of moments, and come together in order to support a Korean
village. The issue I have with this being an idealized Korean identity, one
that was from before the war but from the point of view from the present, is
that it removes the current differences in political ideologies. If there was
any accuracies in Taegukgi in that the men did not completely understand the
differences between ‘the commies’ and the south, then the harmony achieved, though
during the war, would have been a far easier conflict to resolve than what
could be considered a resolution or unification in the present day.
Does this mean that Welcome to Dongmakdol just reiterates
that the notion of unification is an old idea that would have been far easier
to establish in the times closer to the war or armistice, and that
reunification is something that the states should no longer strive towards?
Obviously reunification is in the hearts of many, but does the film suggest
that reunification is just a fantasy?
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