Joint Security Area -- Film Review

1.
Park Chan-wook is one of my favorite filmmakers still alive enough to produce interesting cinema. His first success in Joint Security Area is, beside Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, a favorite. His stories are cohesive and engaging, his characters interesting and intricate, his cinematography almost always of perfect art and his themes of philosophical depth. His consistent nihilist streak tends to induce depressive introspection -- or his audience attends for the brutality.

2.
The plot follows a 'neutral' Korean-Swiss detective to the DMZ to investigate a murder and prevent further incidental strife. A Southern Sgt. confessed but his story conflicts with the Northern account, both of which attempt to obscure the truth of their friendly relations leading to the shooting.

3.
The mystery was presented well -- but the story's focus was less interested in whodunit than presenting an optimistic scenario around reconciliation from diplomacy and compassion. An idealized human ending to this armored-border arrangement but one succumbing to the realities of friendship sunk under political ideologies and social stagnation based in past and forgotten (for most) antagonisms -- a cold conflict kept on in silence, balance and deception.

4.
All the leads actors, as always in Park's pictures, are amazing. Best is Lee Young-ae as the Swiss Major Jean. I love every role I've seen her play but in this film she is underused to a depressing degree (my only significant criticism) but when on-screen, she shines. That's true for Song Kang-ho as Northern Sgt. Oh -- Song is the best actor in the cast (and in any film) and he makes his character the most endearing: Sgt. Oh is intelligent, pragmatic, compassionate, loyal to the North's objectives and is never reduced or degraded into some harsh caricature of the archetypal fanatical Stalinist soldier. Song's Oh is human for the duration -- always likable and the most enjoyable scenes are his.

5.
The setting and tensions of the DMZ appear recreated and genuine -- our source for philosophical pessimism, a reminder of the Korean War, a symbolic defense barrier, a people separated and segmented for some innane relic cause. The Cold War remains there.

6.
Park's cinematography is pristine. He uses ornamental flourishes to indicate temporal juxtapositions and his shots of the wilderness surrounding their microcosmic warzone are a breathing mimicry of nature invaded -- the man can film the world well. But most shots here are functional when compared to the still-camera of Mr. Vengeance, the stylistic trip of Oldboy or snowblood floral patterns in Lady Vengeance.

7.
Death on the DMZ -- JSA's main theme is: 'irrational or arbitrary boundaries reinforce social alienation, division, unecessary obligations, coercive or deceptive powerplays, aggression selected instead of diplomacy, political stagnation and the ultimate inquiry: can neutrality be achieved or maintained, ever?' The halves divide over contrasting political/fiscal ideologies. Pragmatic diplomacy can be employed to erase those barriers for a cultural commonality -- any efforts are neutered against political or economic ambition and the state's posterity. Positions of political or military loyalty receive inquisitive fire, judged by unemotive external hierarchies enforcing an arbitrary moral code requiring an erect uniformity. States need no perspective or concern past their momentary needs, leaving labels of loyalty or not decided by opportunism.

8.
The suspects try to deceive their superiors and Major Jean by adapting to the realities of circumstance and obscuring the truth of their friendship -- one formed in a period of relative tranquility. The deaths tend to its erasure. The failure to adapt tends to end in death while also being the foundation for their camaraderie -- feigning blindness when facing their station's use.

9.
The Swiss settle it as diplomacy's representatives, arriving to seal an issue arisen upon the landscape of the South's Sunshine Policy. The DMZ's existence and purpose counter any serious diplomatic efforts, countered by continued training exercises by both sides, political conflicts, intellectual contraints and the eventual violence causing their arrival.

10.
Circumstance selects their role in the game: in solitude, friendships can be forged -- under command's eye, they are to be enemies and preclude any relations beyond rabid antagonism. But never are there legitimated circumstances allowing for genuine friendship or solidarity, or even actual animosity. Occupancy and political loyalty stand first before anything else. The site's stagnation (frozen hostility) is negated in instances of dialogue or temporary neutrality but still it stands to benefit the leadership lounged on either side: the Kim dynasty would be replaced or usurped, and the American presence they'd request to return home. Major Jean is summoned as a neutral force, before her investigative efforts effect empathy in her. Neutrality needs distance -- impossible for those involved in this bleakest of situation, still holding onto a decent character and a desire for right.

11.
Overall: 5/5. The minor imperfection of an underused Lee Young-ae is not pervasive enough to merit a demerit. Another depressing portrait of suffering inside arbitrary social constraints.