The Unforgiven:
A Silent Scream from the Barracks
We are presented with a military film that features no weapons, no training montages, no shooting ranges, and no battlefields. There are no outstanding achievements, no medals, no brotherhood or team spirit; we find not a trace of heroism. Instead, we follow our soldiers in their dormitories, restrooms, or during the "leisure time" spent within the confines of the barracks. We see them in wretched situations, participants in idiotic, one-sided communication, pathetically repeating like automatons: "I am Private X." There is no personal space, no intimacy; personality has ceased to exist, and both body and soul have become tools for vulgar amusement.
We barely sense the presence of officers in this closed world; the characters of our story are all common soldiers, which might lead us to think they are all in the same boat. This is only true insofar as they all walk the same rugged path during their mandatory service—or more accurately, they crawl from the status of a "green" recruit, subordinate to everyone, through several ranks toward the long-awaited status of a soldier about to be discharged. This reaches the highest level of the hierarchy available to privates, measured in time served. However, the already strictly hierarchical structure of the army is further complicated by the Confucian principle of authority, which demands unconditional respect not only for those of higher rank but also for those who are slightly older or began their service earlier.
It requires little imagination to see how such a world becomes a breeding ground for the power games and abuses that routinely emerge in closed communities, and why a single promotion feels like a small salvation. The director, Yoon Jong-bin, experienced all of this firsthand, and his film is a cry for help from the young men forced into this diabolical situation. I wrote "cry," but it is more of a silent scream. At a slow pace, through a multitude of everyday scenes—at times flirting with documentary realism—the daily lives of a military unit unfold before us. We experience the events through flashbacks in the memories of our protagonist, Lee Seung-young (Seo Jang-won), who is currently on leave.
As a frightened recruit, he too faces humiliating initiations and the vile games of his superiors. However, Seung-young is lucky: a former schoolmate, Yoo Tae-jeong (Ha Jung-woo), is a senior member of the unit and protects the shy but internally resistant boy from the others. This protection, however, ends with Tae-jeong’s discharge, and our hero must slowly stand on his own feet. Admittedly, he does not do so in the way we might have expected; his internal resistance wanes, and he increasingly adapts to the local power dynamics.
This transformation changes his relationship with his protégé, the somewhat slow-witted and constantly clumsy Heo Ji-hoon (played by Yoon Jong-bin himself), whose traits make him the perfect tool for the cruel games of "comrades" who dominate the weak. It is only a question of time before Seung-young’s patience—driven by his desire to fit in with the others—runs out, and it happens at Ji-hoon’s most vulnerable moment. The consequence is a tragedy that forces Seung-young to face his own role. During his leave, he desperately seeks out Tae-jeong for help, but the man is already living his civilian life, and the two friends find themselves talking past each other in a peculiar way.
The film offers two different answers to whether the time spent in the army can ever be truly processed. The director approached this heated topic with immense courage; in South Korea, which remains de jure at war, questioning the two-year mandatory service is taboo, and portraying the military in an unfavorable light is certainly not rewarded. Nevertheless, the film became a massive success because it unflinchingly presented the traumatic life experience that almost every Korean man acquires during his service. Following the film, a significant social debate emerged regarding the issue of conscription.
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| Director Yoon Jong-bin |
Interestingly, this feature-length, extremely low-budget production was the 26-year-old director’s thesis film. Yet, there is no trace of "student-level" work here; we see a film that maintains tension throughout. The performances are excellent: Ha Jung-woo’s portrayal of both the military and civilian versions of Tae-jeong is fascinating. Seo Jang-won’s delicacy and internal resolve as Seung-young are equally convincing. While his "corruption" is perhaps less vividly portrayed, he is powerful again in the tormented scenes during his leave.
The biggest surprise is the portrayal of the fumbling, annoyingly inept Ji-hoon, played by none other than the director, Yoon Jong-bin. In his excellent performance, the boy’s loneliness and his desperate clinging to his "real-world" life deeply touch the viewer.
The Ministry of Defense, however, was not moved by Director Yoon’s sensitive performance; they filed a lawsuit against him after the film’s completion. Yoon Jong-bin admitted that he had misled the Ministry when requesting permission to film in a real barracks, describing the plot only partially as a "touching friendship between two fellow soldiers."
Thanks to its brave and honest revelation of reality and its strong directorial execution, the film was released in Korean art-house theaters and received numerous domestic and international accolades, including being selected for the Un Certain Regard section of the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.
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