Inserting the filmmaker into the character-driven film.Army
Kelvin Kyung Kun Park, 2019, South Korea
genre: essay, character driven, observational
Lately I’ve been watching a number of films which wed some kind of essay film construction to documentary narrational forms. (The difference is complicated matter but in short: I read an essay film to emphasize more or less direct authorial commentary on nonfiction images.) Kevlin Kyung Kun Park’s Army is probably the first I’ve seen to combine essay film with a character driven observational documentary. Army is about South Korea’s obligatory military service for young men, and Park gained access to shoot the training camp for one cohort, following in particular one young man, Woochul.
Army lacks some of the hallmarks of a conventional character-driven doc, since it gives little actual testimony from Woochul. But the character’s arc as he rises in ranks but has difficulties, is clear and forms a central part of the film.
But it’s only half of the film, because Park’s voiceover describes his own history of military service and his changing, conflicting emotions about it. It’s remarkable for the space it opens up within South Korean consensus politics, but also for the way it poses an affinity between character and author. It’s not a coequal relationship, of course, since Park is the one constructing this connection, but it’s an interesting gesture of emotional identification and narrative arc across the divide of filmmaker-subject.