Changing Contours of Treachery: Pro-Japanese Collaboration in Recent South Korean Film
South Korean films have historically adhered to a stringent form of nationalism in their depiction of the colonial past. Consequently, the figure the pro-Japanese collaborator has long been portrayed as the villain who incites collective rage and righteous punishment. A series of recent films, however, takes viewers into a different orbit of comprehension where the psychological depth and complexity of collaborators receive attention. By reading such image both as a sign of experimentation in film narration and as a new marker for postcolonial visuality, this presentation strives to illuminate an evolving area of innovation in contemporary South Korean cinema.
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Speaker Bio
Jinsoo An is associate professor at Dept. of East Asian Languages and Cultures of UC Berkeley. An completed a doctoral degree at Dept. of Film and TV of UCLA and subsequently taught at Hongik University in Korea before joining the faculty at UC Berkeley in 2012. His recent book, "Parameters of Disavowal" reassesses South Korea's cinematic rendition of the colonial past as a particular type of knowledge production integral to the historic-cultural logic of the Cold War system.