Interview with Kim Shin-Wan / The Seoul Guardians (SFF26)

I got the opportunity to speak to one of the directors of a truly special film. A film that is more vital than ever in this current political climate. A film that made me cry, made me cheer, made me hide my face in fear, and chiefly put me squarely in the shoes of a group of people dealing with a complex and overwhelming situation. The film is The Seoul Guardians about the 6-hour martial law declared by President Yoon in South Korea, and the director is Kim Shin-Wan. This film will be playing at the Sydney Film Festival, which runs from the 3rd to the 14th of June. Do not miss your chance to see such a brilliant piece of art and of journalism.

By Billy Newbery

 

Billy Newbery 
This film jumps straight into the action, picking up pretty much as President Yoon calls martial law. What did that night look like for you just before the cameras started rolling?

Kim Shin-Wan
I just finished work on my investigative TV program called PD Notebook for the day. I was resting at home when my mother called me to say that something had happened. Immediately, I ran to the National Assembly. The other directors of this film had already arrived and managed to get inside the National Assembly, while I was stuck outside. We had eight directors, some outside, some inside, and someone even went to President Yoon’s residence.

BN  
Were people at the time thinking that President Yoon might put the country under martial law to try and stay in power? 

KSW
President Yoon basically failed to show strong leadership as the head of the government, and many people saw his administration as very authoritarian. There had already been many controversies about abuse of power, including corruption allegations involving both him and his wife. With this happening, the opposition parties kept trying to check his power through the national assembly, legal processes, and especially a special prosecutor’s investigation, which, as it went on, began to leave President Yoon politically cornered. I think he felt he needed a dramatic change to escape that political crisis, but we couldn’t imagine that he would declare martial law. Some politicians at the time thought it could happen, but the everyday person didn’t.

BN
When you arrived at the National Assembly, and crowds were already beginning to gather, was everyone immediately thinking of the violence and death that came with the last time martial law was called? Or like in the film, did those fears build and become more prevalent later?

KSW
When my mother called me to say that something had happened, and I jumped in the taxi, I was immediately thinking about the last martial law and of the Gwangju massacre. When I arrived at the National Assembly, many people, inside and outside the National Assembly, kept shouting about Gwangju. I felt that the memory of the Gwangju uprising was on many people’s minds that night. It’s a big trauma for the country, which taught us some lessons. We learned that democracy must be protected through effort and solidarity with others. That is when democracy is in danger; we should not hesitate. When filming that night, I sometimes even felt that the citizens were more prepared than the soldiers. Even though they had no leader directing them, their leader was the memory of the Gwangju uprising. I really wanted to create a record of the emotions and memories we felt that night because the news and TV documentaries couldn’t. It’s very complex, and it needs a cinematic experience to make audiences take in the full complexity of the night.

BN  
I love how this film doesn’t necessarily focus on the importance of the lawmakers over the ordinary people who were there and willing to fight. Why was it so important to keep civilians at the centre of this film?

KSW
The congressman needed to nullify the martial law, which meant that we, the people, needed to protect them. Journalists, congressmen, legal aids and the people on the street, they are all of them citizens, and citizens are the main characters of this film. They show us what we should do when democracy is in crisis. I wanted to make a documentary to show how dynamic the situation was and how diverse the people were who tried to do something.

BN 
This film is a truly emotionally powerful film, leaning brilliantly into creating empathy for those who were there, sometimes even in a poetic way, with cross-cutting to archival footage. How did you technically go about achieving this level of empathy?

KSW
I am a journalist, so it’s hard for me to make a film in a fictional mode; it’s really important for me to first gather the facts. Facts are a really good fundamental base to start from. I believe that facts make people feel. People often think that during events like these, the behaviour and emotions of the people present are some sort of binary. As if people only feel bravery or fear or something in that vein, but in real life, at an event such as this, people on the ground all feel very differently from each other; someone would be frustrated, someone else would be sad, someone would be scared, and another might feel very brave. So it’s a complexity of feelings that we wanted to gather and show. To create this aura of dynamic and diverse emotions, all happening together. Then, when we looked over all the materials that we have filmed, we put on the music and sound to emphasise some feelings. For us, this was really a journalistic process; it was very important to make this film different, starting with the facts of the night and building from there.

BN  
Something that this film does do quite differently is that it doesn’t make the soldiers and police enforcing the martial law out to be complete villains. Even taking time to show us some of their scared faces. Why did you think it was important to take this approach?

KSW
Soldiers are very powerful; they have guns, and there are always many of them. If they intend to get through a group of citizens by using force, there is nothing the citizens can really do, but on that night, they didn’t use that kind of force. They were really aggressive because they had to obey the mission, but they hesitated, and they were confused. In the end, they didn’t really do too much. This is part of the truth, and so I didn’t want to blame the soldiers totally. I mean, this is kind of complex, and I want to show the situation as what it is; this approach makes people think more. We don’t want to make a propaganda documentary about the victory of democracy or something like that. It is a constant process to achieve democracy. The first step is being willing to actually talk with one another. I mean, there are so many citizens who agree with the declaration of martial law by President Yoon, which shows that actually we need to talk, not just separate people into a simple us and them narrative.

BN 
As we reach the end of the film, you could have gone the comfortable route that a lot of films take. Giving the audience a cathartic, hopeful win, but instead you leave the audience in this far greyer, complicated space, why?

KSW
The main characters of fiction films get what they want; it’s a kind of victory that the audience shares with the main character. Though, as I told you, democracy is just a process, there is no ending. Which meant we couldn’t finish the film with a concrete ending. Our film ends on a note of progress and on the discussion of the process of democracy. Leaving space for what we need, to actually be talking about democracy and democracies, crisis and polarisation, these discussions are important to our theme. That’s why we finish an open-ended note.

BN 
With the current climate in the world, where more and more governments of different countries are leaning right, and leaders are trying to grab power. How do you think people should fight back? Do you think the only way people might be able to fight is by “throwing their bodies into the machine”, so to speak?

KSW
People in Korea actually acted when their democracy was weakening. It was our immediate reaction because we have had many experiences against controlling governments, and we have become well-trained to react. Though we do it in a controlled way. When some people act to provoke the soldiers’ behaviour in an overly aggressive way, many people say, “calm down, you know this is not right”. We just want to show our feelings and our thoughts, and to protect democracy, we don’t need to be violent. This is a very tricky line to walk, but I think that it is very important. The people on the ground showed how we should act, not to be too aggressive and yet not hesitate to do something. It is very important to let your feelings be known and to react without violent demonstrations; violence is not the way to solve the problem.

BN
I wanted to ask a kind of broader question to end on. After all this has happened, how is South Korea coming out after this incident? Are people more on the alert now for governments’ wrongdoings?

KSW
We have a big trauma because it was such a shocking event. We are trying to overcome and recover, but you know, Korea is not very stable after what happened. Have you heard the news about the Starbucks marketing in Korea? It’s these kinds of events that happen now, where we are on alert, we are worried and wary about what people are hiding. These issues, though, are global issues, so we need to be willing to openly talk about them.

The Seoul Guardians is screening at SFF from the 11 – 13 June
https://www.sff.org.au/program/event/the-seoul-guardians/