Cho Jung-rae: SPIRITS' HOMECOMING (2016)

조정래: 귀향

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Spirits' Homecoming:
75,200 Hearts for the Souls of the Lost

75,200.
Let us savor this number for a moment: how vast is it? What scale do we envision when we imagine that many people acting with a single will? In the case of Spirits' Homecoming, this is how many individuals contributed through donations to ensure the completion of a film that had been halted several times due to financial difficulties.

Following World War II, one had to wait until the 1980s for one of the darkest secrets afflicting the civilian population to come to light. This did not happen overnight; rather, as a long, drawn-out process, the details were revealed, and from the mosaics of stories provided by women testifying about their past, the full picture finally emerged.

By 2015, the story of the "comfort women"—abducted women taken to the military's secret brothels to satisfy the sexual desires of Japanese soldiers—had become known not only to Koreans but also on an international level. Many were still mere children, young girls—perhaps the most vulnerable on the blood-soaked tactical table of men's war games.

The greatest treasure of any nation is its generation of children. What emotions, what intensities of passion must have driven the fathers and mothers of the adult generation to do everything in their power—in hopes of creating a memorial and seeking restitution through film—for those victims who lived generations ago, yet remained forever the collective children of them all? Even the premiere did not go smoothly, as distributors were reluctant to screen the film. However, people wrote petitions and paid for tickets in advance so that on March 1, 2016—Independence Movement Day—the film would finally reach theaters, immediately hitting box-office records during its opening weekend.

I do not know how the public sensed that an exceptionally important film was in the making. For Cho Jung-rae’s film is a work that undertakes an almost impossible task, yet fulfills its commitment entirely.

Director Cho Jung-rae

Those who have seen the film Snowy Road know what a "light" treatment of this same subject entails—one adjusted merely to the tolerance levels of television screens, rather than easing the emotional burden of the viewers. In Homecoming, there is no such refinement; the events are presented with naturalistic ruthlessness. The screenplay tangibly reconstructs the past reality from the details of the victims' testimonies and does not turn its gaze away from any horror. Thus, we too become acquainted with the structures of brothels reminiscent of pens or paddocks, and the no less animalistic activities taking place within them. The film summons and puts on public display all that the Japanese military first wanted to conceal and later wished to erase forever from the sequence of events. Those who vanished without a trace are brought to life, for having been treated as objects, they were simply destroyed once they were no longer of use.

Various estimates exist regarding the percentage of abducted women who perished, and this figure hovers around 80–90 percent. The few survivors were unable to report what had happened to them. Because of shame, fear of contempt, and ostracization—the consequences of which would have cost them even the slightest chance of living a normal life. What remained was secrecy; even if they managed to marry and start a family, they had to lie about the true reason they were unable to bear children. And those were the happier stories. For many, due to the traumas endured, chose suicide or required treatment for severe psychological problems.

The film sets the foul world of wartime brothels in sharp contrast with the peaceful, though struggling, lives of the young girls' lost homes and families, which feel almost idyllic in the light of the ensuing horror. At the same time, life lives and wants to live; the girls cherish the hope of returning home, and in their rare moments granted without harassment, they are able to transform back into beings reminiscent of their former selves, who can still smile and even sing.

The two protagonist girls are also guided by magical faith, for they carry a protective amulet made by the mother of one of them. With this element, the film bridges the timelines of the past and the present. We see one of the girls as an elderly survivor living in solitude, sewing amulets for her friend, who happens to be a shaman.

It is an extraordinary feat of screenwriting how the layers of the realistic and spiritual worlds slide into one another, utilizing the archaic belief system of Koreans—which exists to this day—in the most natural way. While in the film Snowy Road the thread connecting generations resulted in a didactic outcome, here we encounter a completely different trajectory. The shaman woman believes she recognizes the signs of a born shaman in a girl with a peculiar backstory. This girl is also a victim of violence and happens upon the company of the elderly survivor by chance. The touch of the amulet turns her into a medium, who from that point on can mediate between the former friends, only one of whom returned home alive. The experience of death serves simultaneously as an initiation for the girl into becoming a true shaman, who subsequently uses her powers—unfolding in their full strength—to conduct the ritual for summoning the souls home.

We witness a sublime scene in which the souls set out across mountains and waters to their homeland to find peace and rest (the film’s original title is simply Homecoming). The wheel of time turns back; families become whole again. And the national body also becomes whole, understanding and embracing the souls of the long-suffering victims. Simultaneously, the connection between generations is realized, as a young person becomes capable of experiencing the sufferings of those who went before her, and through her, redemption arrives for the elderly.

The symbolism used by the director to represent the moral losers and victors is particularly beautiful: we see the trembling hand of the Japanese military official, who pins butterflies to a board, break the wing of one of the butterflies. Yet despite the murderous intent, the butterflies come to life and, flying freely at the shaman’s call, set out toward home.

The film thus achieves a double triumph: it gives birth once more to a forgotten, denied history into reality, memorializes it, and simultaneously brings a balm to the suffering. It reveals the perpetrators in their bottomless malice but does not seek a scapegoat. It is also magnanimous, as it allows for the realization that there were better people among the enemy as well, who suffered and died just as the innocent victims did.

The film does not forgive the perpetrators, but neither does it seek revenge on anyone. It rises above this from a much higher perspective, in the hope of reconciliation.

I do not know if we shall see another film like this, whose story ends ten minutes before its conclusion. But only the story, not the film itself. During these ten minutes, the names of the supporters form an endless stream across the frames. In the upper band, drawings and paintings appear—the naive works of those former comfort women who, having survived hell on earth, required psychiatric help, and for whom drawing out what happened to them formed part of their therapy.

Allegedly, one such artwork prompted director Cho Jung-rae to write the screenplay and produce the film. Gratitude is owed to him for being able to create a soul-lifting, profoundly human work out of one of the darkest stories.

The film even inspired its producer, Jo Company, to take an unusual step: they launched the "Let's Hug Together" campaign, primarily to heal the spiritual wounds of the former comfort women, but also recognizing that many of our contemporaries are in need of a healing embrace.

I shall refrain from praising the actors individually for now, as almost every character's portrayal is worthy of highlight—authentic, deeply felt performances.

Finally, the visual quality of the film must be mentioned; its picturesqueness despite the horrors depicted. In places, it emphasizes the inexpressible with peculiar visual ingenuity—the sight of the brothel shown from above, operating at full capacity, will surely never be forgotten by anyone who has seen those frames.