(2 stars out of 5, for cinematography and the epilogue)

Update: Mavsman at PWeb also bashes Splendid Holiday, along with more personal reflections and background. The movie doesn't deserve his contemplation.

I just returned from the theater, where my wife and I watched Splendid Holiday (Hwa Hyeo Han Hyu Ga), about the 1980 Gwangju Massacre.

According to the director, Kim Ji-hoon:

"This movie is not focused on politics or ideology but on people. I wanted to show how ordinary people were helplessly sucked into the whirlwind of the tragedy and how their peaceful lives were destroyed..."

That's putting it mildly. In the first scene, the commanding officer tells his officers that they are attacking North Korea. Another officer looks out the window, notices the position of the sun, and tells his comrade, "We are headed south!" Politics nearly disappears after this. Aside from horrific scenes of blood splattering across billboards and under hospital gurneys and some whizzing bullets and shells crashing through walls, this is a very restrained film. What happened on the college campuses is bypassed for the assaults and clashes on the streets, where civilians, high school students, and crack troops rumble, pause for the national anthem, and even share some laughs.

What I did not like about this film is, that the important part of the history intrudes upon a fantasy world where people fall in love and families deal with mundane issues. It's a middle class fable of a generation that came of age in a very contentious age. One day we were courting, and then the next day bad soldiers were splitting skulls. The only provocative scene is the epilogue, where the movie finds its center.

As all the characters, from both sides, meet in a wedding portrait, we notice how sad and angry the survivors, most remarkably the bride (Lee Yo-won) are. The dead, including South Korean officers, the retired colonel turned protest leader (Ahn Sung-ki), and the groom (Kim Sang-kyeong), are smiling and joking with one another. The love affair should have blossomed into a marriage, if only the groom had lived. The dead have made their peace with one another; the living were denied that right.

I'm glad that the film did eschew the politics of American involvement. There is no smoke-filled scene in Seoul where the Americans diabolically allow Chun Doo-hwan to squash Gwangju. Instead, there is a brief scene where a Catholic pastor brings a New York Times, with the protest as the main headline, and beams about how America will help them. The realistic colonel soberly tells them that America will not take sides.

South Korean movies have achieved the Hollywood look without any depth. There is a epic sweep to this film, and even a certain trite pathos. But the characters are so metaphorical, even in bad 80s clothing, that they lack the ability to fix attention. One of my favorite actors, Ahn Sung-ki, is wasted as the former colonel turned protest leader. Modern language is used, like "Fighting!". The characters, shades really, are types, not even the names on the graves at the Gwangju Memorial. As a matter of fact, it is only because of those gruesome photographs at Gwangju that I want to understand those people. This movie did not help me understand why a person would walk into the streets to confront the phalanxes and tanks.

I want the political subtext, the controversy, the partisan anger. Instead I got a mawkish fairy tale. Visit Gwangju if you want to know about 1980, and don't see this film.