RatingMovies.Com - ldh's review of Joint Security Area (2000)

I love Korean movies. They have been a strong focus of mine over the past 2 years. "Joint Security Area" is one of the best of the past few years. It is refined in how it details a few human relationships; how it is careful to divulge only a bit at a time, leaving the full picture clear only at the very last minute of the film. If you are a person who wants to understand everything linearly, or right away, then this is not a movie for you. You have to be patient here, work at it. Lots of things are simply not told, and you are left with a puzzle that you are able to only piece back together basically on a single image that the director focuses on during the last 60 seconds of the film. It's brilliant. At least, it had a big impact on myself and left me with many thoughts for the following days. It's at the same time a summary of the movie, and a resolution of all the tensions that accumulated throughout the movie.

Korean movies for me have a very particular emotional resonance. They sneak up on you in a weird way. You are often presented with characters, that are generally quite tormented, physically and psychologically (Koreans are a very troubled people it seems), but who at the same time keep an emotional distance that is very strong and formal. You'd expect simply not to get attached to the characters because the performances themselves are also generally very cold and distant. But, suddenly, something really important, dramatic, happens to them, and you realize how very subconsciously, the director, the writer and the performers built a very deep relationship with you, the viewer. You realize you really cared about the characters more that you thought. There is also of course the fact that the things that happen to these people is simply at a different order of magnitude from what we are used to see in western movies. It's simple: i can remember very vividly all the main characters of most of the Korean movies i have seen in the past 2 years. As other masterpieces of modern Korean cinema, i strongly recommend "Failan" and "Address Unknown", although the later is definitely not for weak stomachs, so i have warned you.

Now, specifically about "JSA", this is a 'traditional' modern Korean movie. The production value is as always very good, with a clean art direction, set of performances, and cinematography. The film is very story and character driven, and here, you are treated to an exposition of a deep trauma in the modern Korean culture: the rift between the north and the south. The movie, under the guise of a military investigation, is a study of the relationships individuals on both camps can have with each other, in spite or because of that bigger political and historical reality they all live under.

One night, a fire exchange occurs between the North and South Korean border patrols in the JSA, a special zone that strictly delineates the border between North and South Korea. Several soldiers, on both sides, are dead as a result. A young Swiss woman of North Korean parents, is brought in to lead the investigation. Slowly you learn about the various protagonists of the incident, and that things that seem obvious at first are really a lot more complicated. People that you see as terminal enemies appear to have actually nurtured a long and strong friendship in the months that preceded the incident.

This in itself is a fairly common plot, but set against the background of North and South Korean tensions, it takes on a very different dimension. As i said before, the twist here is in how the direction and the writing has executed on that premise. It's fantastic. The music is also very catchy and touching.

This is a fairly unknown movie over here, but it was quite successful in Korea. It is culturally challenging but definitely worth the effort. If you want to delve deep in a national trauma of a country with a very different culture, JSA is definitely a treat.

- Laurent Hasson