Repetition in the President’s Barber

The President’s Barber follows the Park Chung Hee’s barber the years after Park’s reelection up until his assassination. The film specifically is following the movement to eradicate South Korea of North Korean spies, and the illness that the spies brought to the South.

I noticed a lot of repetition in this film, be it through the narrative, through camera movements, or through sounds. Sung Han Mo spoke the repetition that most people probably caught on to. He would say, ‘Yes, President’, often. I also noticed that there was a certain noise played during the rooftop scenes, when the men thought they saw North Korean spies. There was also a repetition in the narrative of the son hurting other children that he plays with in order to protect the reputation of his father.

This brings in a great way to include Professor Han’s lecture on Korean megachurches. Professor Han mentioned that church membership received exponential grown during the Park regime. I think that repetition is an action that reinforces a certain belief or understanding, and that in the case of megachurches, the repetition of going and growing reinforces the strength of the church, and how it is able to gain control of a certain percent of the population. The control is, of course, far less powerful than that of the Park regime, but it is a control nonetheless, especially with the privatized bus routes and now with the public transportation metro exit leading into a church.

Interestingly, there is that one humorous scene in which the President is trying to say Sung’s name but repeats it incorrectly every single time. What does it mean when repetition is used to signify something of importance (reputation, spies, or class) but the people of the highest class do not need to perform repetition correctly? If repetition is a form of remembering or associating, what does it mean when Park Chung Hee doesn’t have to remember, but the other citizens, and even the viewers do?