Nature and Healing

Welcome to Dongmakgol was a highly appreciated treat for the eyes, with its lush vibrant portrayal of nature that I don’t associate with war movies. Nature was brought to our attention in so many ways including the cinematography: the recurring image of the central tree in the village as people move around it, the butterflies, the wide shots of hills and valleys and my favourite, nature overtaking such as the bomber slowly taken over by nature and the grenade exploding turns into the first snow fall, magical and promising of new loves and a new season. The latter scene was very provocative for me –destructive modernity and loss, with a seemingly dud grenade blowing up a storage house of corn, which the villagers depend on in the winter, turns into wonder and opportunities instead of loss and pain, with the corn turning into pop corn and floating down like snow, and everyone reacts to it the way people react to the first now – looking up with big eyes and slow smiles as they put out their hands to catch some of the snow.

Nature infuses the people too, lending its tranquility and beauty to the people both as recipients and as agents: the soldiers becomes less twitchy and gun crazy, healing and relaxing in nature; the SK maknae spares the soldier’s life after remembering  Yeo-Ill celebrating and taking pleasure in nature during rain showers and in the flowers; Yeo-Ill, evocative of forest fairies, brings the wounded soldiers in to the village to be eventually healed; and the villagers are not flustered or scared by the stalemate, instead just going about their own business and provides the foil to the teacher and the soldiers who are tense, knowing the implications after being tainted by modernity and conflict that exists beyond Dongmakgol.

This perfect agrarian ideal (Shin) and Bermuda triangle that renders outside forces impotent, provide the environment for the two sides to come together and become better for it, strengthening personally and collectively, as the agrarian nationalistic movement believed was the ideal. We also see nature as being a reference for decisions – the boar, a natural and intrinsic enemy, is brought down by teamwork. This can be applied to present day circumstances where natural enemies are aggressive or damaging political or social intrusions. The Agrarian movement also promotes working together and reinventing the traditional in relation to the modern (Shin) and also ties in with learning from the past (Bevan).

I read the situation with snakes, another natural enemy, as symbolizing the current situation. The men fired all the rounds at an enemy that is only briefly glimpsed, where the bullets are the loss, trauma and fear; and the enemy is the past, the Korean war, the division between North and South. This leaves the men with weakened defences towards their perceived enemies, which allows for cohabitation and eventual reconciliation and friendship, which would an actual reconciliation, now that people have had a chance to empty out their metaphorical and literal bullets.

This celebration of nature and of Dongmakgol with Dongmakgol being a indisputable part of nature and also symbolic of the unified Korea, speaks to both the agrarian nationalistic movement which promotes collective over individual, and self sufficiency amongst other traits, as well as the fact that both N and S Korean leaders believed in Koreans being the same people of the same blood. Dongmakgol brings the two sides together, and in the end we have a North South Allied forces rather than Western allied forces with Koreans divided.