EIFF 2013: National Security

What can be more worthy than a film highlighting the cruelty of torture? And what more torturous than almost two hours as witness to such soulless barbarity? Well the torture itself, of course, let’s not be flippant, but it’s still an affecting ordeal to watch this weighty new film from Chung Ji-young. Set during the political activism of 80s Korea and the subsequent violent interrogations conducted by the ruling dictatorship, the director picks a subject ingrained in the Korean subconscious while retaining relevance.

Waterboarding is the weapon of choice here, a US export and one of the director’s many nods to America’s extracurricular activities. Its title of 'simulated drowning' is as inaccurately inoffensive as the grey company men who carry it out, each more concerned with the everyday trials of family and promotion than the live human suffering at their hands. Although their backstories add context they also lend an unnecessary dramatic arc to acts that are simply savagery.

Wang Bing's 2007 short The Brutality Factory provided no answers to torture, just an unformed, searing experience of horror and helplessness. The constructed narrative here softens the blow, especially the tortured Kim Jong-tae (Park Won-sang)’s hallucinated flashbacks. In contrast to this recorded testimonies of those who suffered cut deeper. The final dedication to victims of torture the world over an acknowledgement that while this particular true story broods darkly within Korea's memory, the universality of torture remains an unacceptable truth.