by Claudia Siefen-Leitich
Within his extensive film work, director Im Kwon-taek (born 1934 in Gwangju, South Korea) is concerned with national consciousness and thus with the history of his country. From cultural identity and the class differences associated with it, through to the divided roles of men and women: Im quickly takes the side of the women in order to find his way back to the history of his country through individual fates. The stories he has told since then cannot be imagined, let alone understood, without the basis of Confucianism. Confucius’ teachings are based on the so-called basic virtues such as humanity, a sense of morality and a sense of social justice. Knowing what is humane should be trained just as much as the knowledge of righteous actions, insight and realisation. However, these virtues can only be acquired through education: the development into a moral role model (the monarch towards the common people and the man towards the woman) takes place in three stages in this learning process: The acquisition of knowledge leads to moral realisation, this leads to a strong and wise charisma and thus leadership, and finally to a man at rest in his wisdom.
In my opinion, within an artistic reception, education is given a high priority in his cinematic work, as are social loyalty and group orientation, which can also be discovered in Im Kwon-taek’s films and which might occasionally cause difficulties for Western viewers in understanding their narratives. However, access to the individual themes is not necessarily made more difficult. Im Kwon-taek likes to use his appreciation of the fine arts and their deep connection to his own cultural roots as material to show personal fates that are never detached from their time and political events.
To be more specific: In a flashback, the painter genius Seung-up recounts how he once rose from a beaten street kid, becoming the country’s most famous artist. In his 2002 film Painted Fire (Chi-hwa-seon), the director literally takes the time to bring the Korean tempo he often quotes to full effect. There is no sense of slowness in the sense of boredom: the scenes play themselves out without being driven forward. They find their own natural end without hindering the story in its development. In Choi Min-sik’s grandiose performance in the lead role, we see a country in the second half of the 19th century. If at first we turn up our noses at the usual ingredients of passionate artist biographies (alcohol, sex and infidelity, destructive self-doubt combined with auto-aggression), our view soon changes: this is partly due to the aforementioned calmness of the individual sequences.
As a street kid marked by hunger and more than just physical violence, the respected artist Kim Byung-moon, played by Ahn Seong-ki, takes him in. Due to the boy’s interest in his master’s work, he recognises the boy’s talent for drawing. This is initially based only on a photographic memory, but his drawing skills are encouraged by the master. This initially earns him the mistrust and enormous displeasure of his colleagues: how is an uneducated, ignoble child supposed to be able to depict divine nature? Under constantly disapproving eyes, little Seung-up finally runs away. He returns as a young adult. That time remains a dark hole for the viewer. But his master takes him in again to send him to a Chinese nobleman for training. During his studies, Seung-up falls in love with the landlord’s sister. Although this love is reciprocated, it is also considered improper. Seung-up is deeply hurt to witness her wedding and eventually runs away again. He stays afloat by copying Chinese ink drawings and asks himself for the first time whether it makes sense to imitate the art of another artist. At least this is the first time that this question has been clearly formulated. Great self-doubt about his own ability to create something new leads to his first excessive experiences with alcohol, not forgetting, of course, his first visits to a brothel.
Im Kwon-taek also likes to incorporate historical events into the serious love stories he creates. For example, we learn of his love for a Christian woman who is ultimately beheaded because of her faith. He numbs the pain he feels with further love affairs and is eventually betrayed by a later partner who wants to take the right to try out her sexual freedom just as he does. Injured anew, he sets off on a journey through the troubled country in search of redemption in nature. In his romanticism and search for inner fidelity, he hopes for the sublimation of natural currents, painting and destroying his work again and again. And yes, sometimes the main characters and the director himself seem to mix with each other, but it doesn’t matter whether this happens on the screen or in the actual here and now!
Meanwhile, a myth is already forming around his work and his hard struggle with himself (yes, we’re back to the painter). He is looking for new ways to express himself, using frayed branches instead of brushes. He continues to feel misunderstood, unable to express his inner urge to paint in words and calming conversations like his educated colleagues. Nevertheless, he is eventually invited to the royal court. Together with other artists, he is to fulfil commissions for the king. Once again, he is on the run. During one of the peasant uprisings (the discontent over the high tax burden, the unequal distribution of land within Korea, which was occupied by China, Japan and Russia, and finally the great droughts of 1877 and 1889), he narrowly escapes being murdered. He is no longer seen as an artist of the people but as a parasitic favourite of the king… Yes, this idealistic division is encountered just as frequently in Western European art history.
On his run he meets his master Kim again, who is now living in exile and in poverty. He joins ceramicists to utilise his skills in making vases and pots. But his brush no longer obeys him. There are historical references to the fact that Seung-up was never heard from again (even if this may sound absurd now.) Im Kwon-taek chooses suicide for his film’ character here by having him climb into a kiln, staring apathetically into the distance. Im Kwon-taek paints a historically dense picture of the 19th century, he does. This includes the peasant uprisings, the Japanese occupation and the persecution of Christians. These events are not reflected in Seung-up’s surviving works, but inevitably form the framework for his hard-won self-discovery, or at least the attempt to do so. An almost visible distance to his enormous ambition within his work seems to speak against the complete lack of interest in the financial success of his paintings.
It is not the artist as genius that takes centre stage here, but the artist in self-doubt about his social significance. Whereas in the West, people tend to shy away from showing the ‘painter’ at work in artist biographies, as such a deliberate authenticity would seem too implausible, Im Kwon-taek is able to do this in his mastery without making us feel cheated. The film is often seen as Im’s own struggle within filmmaking, but you don’t have to go that far. Once again, he has sensitively chosen a character to primarily illustrate the struggle of a nation. Using a culturally conditioned form of expression, Im Kwon-taek gives a platform to a national expression to show the perpetual struggle between individualism and social group structure.