Lee Na-jeong: SNOWY ROAD (2015)

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Snowy Road:
History’s Ruthless Path Over Human Lives

It took me several days of contemplation to decide how to write this review. I kept thinking about the difficult position of a director who undertakes to interpret the history of the "comfort women"—the network of institutions established by the Japanese army between 1932 and 1945 to serve the sexual needs of soldiers, and the women who became its victims. How many perspectives must be considered, how many sensitivities respected, while simultaneously satisfying the commissioner's requirements and expressing one's own artistic viewpoint?

This subject is among the most sensitive. Primarily, because it encompasses individual tragedies that are unalterable realities. Secondly, because these singular stories weave into a profound fabric that inflicts a serious, slow-healing wound on the entire national body. Thirdly, because the healing of these wounds depends solely on the concerted, insight-based efforts of formerly hostile nation-states—and as such, is profoundly vulnerable to the current power dynamics of the geopolitical region and the internal political situations of the respective countries.

A further problem is the difficulty of speaking authentically about a phenomenon for which remarkably little reliable information exists. Naturally, the prostitution network was not among the best-documented chapters of military records. Our knowledge stems fundamentally from two sources: the accounts of a few survivors provided forty to fifty years later, and sporadic facts or remarks dropped in military or civilian documents and the press during the war. Based on these, researchers have mostly been limited to estimates regarding the number of those involved and the scale of the brothel network; these estimates vary across an extremely wide range, placing the number of victims between 20,000 and 410,000, and estimating the number of brothels at 125. [1] Since the network spanned from Japan all the way to Southeast Asia, the abducted women were of many different nationalities.

The complexity of this investigation is signaled by the fact that while Korean collective memory holds that most victims were Korean, the scant documentation available suggests that the majority of the women were of Japanese nationality. At the same time, we know that during the Japanese occupation of Korea, Korean citizens were given new Japanese names or were registered as such at birth. From all this, it is evident that tracing the true origins of the abducted women is an almost impossible task.

These circumstances warn us to hold in the highest respect those works created with the intent of historical revelation and the desire to provide restitution to the victims. Yet, intent is not everything, as these are, after all, conveyed through artistic works. Thus, we cannot overlook the necessity of viewing a film essentially as a cinematic creation.

Director Lee Na-jeong

Although the Snowy Road review should finally follow this long introduction, I first recommend that those interested consider its virtues and weaknesses by comparing it with another film: Spirits' Homecoming, directed by Cho Jung-rae.

The main plot of Snowy Road is assembled from the mosaics of survivors' life stories. The "peacetime" lives of the two lead girls are remarkably nuanced; their social differences, family lives, personal desires, and their relationship with one another are presented with a wealth of detail and emotion. Two motifs deserve special mention: the mother of the poorer girl worries that the dangers of war primarily threaten men, never truly considering that she should fear for her daughter, who is still almost a child. The wealthier family appears to collaborate perfectly with the Japanese occupiers; their daughter speaks Japanese and plans a Japanese future for herself. However, it unexpectedly emerges that the father is likely a resistance fighter—and the consequences of this strike the family members with tempestuous speed. Such a turn is not inconceivable in real life, but for some reason, this was the first moment when a dissonant note was struck in the otherwise beautifully performing film. It felt as though this motif was written into the story primarily to absolve a kind of national guilty conscience. An additional layer is placed upon this by the resignation with which the news of the father's contemporary decoration is received by those involved.

With a short jump, we soon find ourselves in the midst of the nightmare: the girls' arrival at the military brothel. The presumably brutal events, however, remain un-depicted; we see only suggestive imagery. In a certain sense, Korean society is characterized by a form of prudery, so I attributed this extremely "soft" mode of representation to that, despite the fact that in numerous other cinematic works, the quite explicit portrayal of sexuality is not absent. In the context of presenting this particular story, however, this choice felt somewhat false and resulted in further dissonance, as it distanced the audience from the reality intended to be shown in its full truth through a kind of narrative—I hesitate to say beautifying or fairytale-like—obscurity.

I found an explanation for this peculiarity upon learning the film's production history. Snowy Road was originally a two-part television drama, which was shortened and re-edited for theatrical release. Obviously, the age-rating regulations of television made a more overt depiction of the horrors impossible.

The story takes place across two timelines; alongside the girls of that era, we see the elderly self of one of them in the present. The lonely elderly lady grows closer to the also lonely young girl living next to her. The approach of these two individuals initially presents another promising thread of the story. One of the film's highlights is the cigarette scene, where we see the two women sitting side by side. It is an unforgettable sequence of images, but afterward, the film suddenly shifts into narrative over-emphasis. It no longer shows; instead, it narrates through words—and unfortunately, in rather didactic sentences.

Of course, one cannot overlook the sad fact that out of tens of thousands of "comfort women," only a few are still alive; therefore, it is extremely important for younger generations to learn their story and represent their aspirations once they are gone. Ultimately, it seems that the relationship between the elderly and the young woman in the film serves this purpose most of all, shifting from its initial natural dynamics to placing a clumsily formulated, heavy-handed summary into the young girl's mouth: the victim should not feel shame for the villainy of others.

After their stories became public, the primary aim of the former "comfort women" was to compel a proper apology from the Japanese leadership. The nature of a worthy apology is perhaps a function of several factors that are more difficult for us to overlook. It cannot be exhausted by superficially tossed words or thrust monetary compensation. All of this is understandable and commendable. At the same time, it is difficult to see when the national soul living with "han" will achieve satisfaction—a soul that is sometimes inclined to intensify the spiritual pain felt over experienced injustices to the extreme. This is more of a theoretical interjection, as I do not believe it should apply to the case of the abducted girls and women, only a fraction of whom returned alive. Their lives thereafter were anything but normal, filled with secrets, and mental and physical problems. The reason the question arises nonetheless is due to the much broader, rippling problematic. Warring armies have always been accompanied by violence against women; it was no different in Europe. Not even in Vietnam, where the soldiers of the Korean forces were no more innocent. And as a further irony, brothels continued to operate in Korea after World War II until 1946, now serving the American military. An apology becomes a relative concept within this force field, because what may seem like too much to the one apologizing may not be satisfying at all to the one awaiting the apology.

The film attempts to bring the peace of resolution and letting go in a final, lyrical circle, yet it runs headlong into the brutal bluntness of the closing titles, which thrusts the determined pursuit of compelling a Japanese apology into the viewers' eyes. This does not question the correctness of the intent; clearly, every person of good feeling agrees with it. However, it reacts upon the film as a whole: it damages the inherent power of the story, which would be capable of evoking a much stronger resonance in the viewers than this slightly agit-prop-toned conclusion, presented as a pre-digested inference.

Yet, the film by director Lee Na-jeong is much more than that. Strong acting performances make the characters memorable, specifically highlighting the once again magnificent performance of Kim Sae-ron, who is joined with equal power by Kim Hyang-gi, portraying the younger self of the other girl, and Kim Young-ok, playing her wise, elderly present-day self. Even Cho Soo-hyang receives memorable moments in the role of the girl next door.

The storytelling in the vast majority of the film is fluid and lyrical, at times not even lacking in humor. The visual world sometimes paints a childhood idyll, at other times projects emotions into natural imagery. The camera angles and the lighting serve the experience of loneliness, confinement, vulnerability, and helplessness with great power throughout, giving us the feeling that history is relentlessly charging through our lives. Both through the lives of those we are watching and through ours as viewers.

But we breathe, and we try not to worry.

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[1]
Digital Museum
The Comfort Women Issue and the Asian Women's Fund
Japanese Military and Comfort Women - Number of Comfort Stations and Comfort Women