Thursday, October 14, 2004

Joint Security Area

I know we had to cut our viewing of Joint Security Area short just as things were heating up, but I wanted to find out everyone's initial reactions anyway. Definitely a good movie; hopefully we'll get to finish it.

One of the most striking themes so far to me is the common ground that the opposing soldiers find. For instance, I enjoyed the humor in the scene when the two are spitting at each other accross the line and cracking up the whole time. Overall, however, the film still seems to promote a realistic, if somewhat pessimistic view toward reunification prospects. The whole "moon pie" scene where Lee proposes the northern soldiers visit the southern side demonstrates ingrained ideological differences.

What does everyone else think?

2 comments:

Reese Davidson said...

I enjoyed the movie. I, too, hope we get to finish it.

It gave a great visual impression of the DMZ.....I'm not sure how realistic the soldiers spitting at each other was though.

I also enjoyed when they pointed out the tree that American soldiers got killed for trying to cut.

From what we've seen so far, reunification seems a far way off.

Phil Blumberg said...

I enjoyed the movie also. One thing that surprised me was the DMZ itself. I had always pictured it as two huge walls with a field in between but this was just a bridge. I like how the movie approached the whole situation from a relatively unbiased point of view. The North Koreans were portrayed poorly, at least the soldiers, and, while the movie emphasized the low quality of life in the DPRK, the North Korean government wasn't portrayed as completely incompetent or ineffective. I think the movie made a strong case that showed the desires of Koreans in both the North and the South to reunite but the impracticalities of reunification as well.