Film Festival

In the ONFilm Festival at Old Dominion I went to see the film Welcome to Dongmakgol. It is a Korean Film Directed by Kwang-Hyun Park. This movie could be considered an anti-war film. Welcome to Dongmokgol is about some soldiers from North Korea and South Korea ending up in this village in the mountains. The people in the village do not know of the war going on, and do not know much about the outside world. The people in the village are very innocent and are not fearful of anything. In addition to the North and South Koreans winding up in the village an American Pilot’s plane crashes into the village, where they end up trying to take care of him. All three of these sides in the war were stranded in this village together, where they all agreed to restore the village’s food supply because they accidently blew it up. They find each other starting to form a bond and understand each other. They start to realize that they didn’t have a good reason for their hatred of one another. They realize they everyone as an individual is a good person. So when American soldiers think that the American pilot is being held by Koreans and is shot down, they plan to attack the village. So the North Koreans, South Koreans, and the American pilot form together to try to stop them from attacking the innocent village.

The main theme of this movie I think revolves around peace. I am still unfamiliar with the Metaphoric method, but I think that would be the best to analyze this artifact. Before the film the lady who did the introduction and talked about the film mentioned how there was a lot of symbolism. She talked about how the white butterflies represented peace, And also about the flowers, and how they represented peace. When the American soldiers were coming down to attack the village white butterflies swarmed around them. This was a sign that there was peace here. These butterflies reappeared throughout the movie. It was not as hard as the soldiers thought to achieve peace. It took the innocence of the people in this village to show the soldiers and the American pilot that their lives are so much happier when they can love one another. There was a little girl in the movie named Yeo-il, which is a Korean way of representing peace, or as one together. In the film everyone called her crazy, but she was the happiest most innocent person in the film. I think this represents peace because sometimes when you think about peace it is a crazy concept. Just like everyone thought this little girl was crazy, the American pilot and soldiers thought peace was crazy. The soldiers never want to leave this village because they are happy and found a place for themselves their. Dongmakgol was peace and harmony. This movie had a great twist; I really enjoyed seeing it, and enjoyed having to read the subtitles. It was fascinating to watch a foreign film.