Working Through Problems and Post-Modern Time: The President's Barber and Epitaph

The film The President’s Barber depicts the working through of Han-Mo’s personal issues, and through them, Korea’s issues with its 20^th century history. In the film, Han-Mo’s child Nak-An is rendered paraplegic by torture; it is only when Han-Mo speaks up against the new president and quits his job in his first politicized action that Nak-An can walk again. Here, Nak-An’s embodiment of Han-Mo’s unresolved issues echo Freud’s discussion of repetition; Freud says, “the patient does not remember anything of what he has forgotten and repressed but acts it out. He reproduces it not as a memory but as an action; he repeats it, without, of course, knowing that he is repeating it” (150). This film presents the eventual working through of Han-Mo’s issues as positive and definite, as a conclusive and happy end to the film.  This is in line with Freud’s conclusion that at the end of treatment, “the doctor has nothing to do than to wait and let things take their course, a course which cannot be avoided nor always hastened” (155).

However, in a post-modern world where grand narratives with happy endings often break down, does Freud’s notion of definitively “working through” personal issues still hold? In the film Epitaph, Lee Su-In helps the child Asako work through her personal issues in a method consistent with the way Freud describes. However, at the end of her treatment, Asako dies, and Lee Su-In is made to horrifically re-enact her memories. This film posits that the very modern notion of working through issues through repetition and remembering is not sufficient in a post-modern world where time is no longer linear. Indeed, in many films in the course, including The Host, Welcome to Dongmakgol, Dachimawa Lee and The Good, the Bad, the Weird, time has non-linear (cyclical, circular, disjointed/multiplicitous) qualities, and this reflects in their conclusions and messages.

Ultimately, The President’s Barber’s attempt to impose a grand narrative on its story is not entirely successful. The film’s happy moments and nostalgic orange tint betray a much darker story, in which a desperate, disenfranchised family tries to heal their paraplegic, tortured son, and only their despondent failure and resulting political apathy bring him back to health. Perhaps this film reflects an attempt by Korea to work through its past--but as long as time is viewed in only a modern fashion, this may prove impossible.