Taboo in the Quiet Night

The fight or flight response triggers instinctual reflexes with incredible speed, and in the case of four Korean men, can spell disaster for a relationship forbidden by society. Park Chan-wook’s film, JSA: Joint Security Area depicts the tragic reality of nationalist ideology as it applies to the tension between North and South Korea. The film essentially inundates the audience in this tension to wrap them up in unfortunate global political turmoil while providing a small token of hope through a taboo friendship that transcends political and physical boundaries. This is achieved through a deafening lack of music, a mild, earthy color palette, dim lighting, and rigid camera movements. With these devices in place, Park tells this whole tragedy through Major Sophie Jean of the Swiss Army and a member of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Committee, tasked with investigating the events that precipitated the deaths of two North Korean soldiers within a guardhouse on the northern side of the demilitarized zone.

To begin her investigation and become familiar with the individuals involved, Major Jean delves into the depositions of Sergeant Lee and Sergeant Oh of South and North Korea, respectively. Unsurprisingly, the two official statements contradict each other in almost every way, however, Major Jean is shocked to discover that none of the men involved are willing to actually speak about the event. Jean’s reading of the depositions provokes two memory sequences, one for each official witness. Lee’s claim is that, while wandering outside of his station to relieve himself, he was captured and taken to the guardhouse across the border. There he managed to escape his bindings and shoot at his three captors. Private Jung and Lieutenant Choi are killed and Sergeant Oh is shot in the arm and Lee sustains an injury to his leg as he flees. Oh’s interpretation of the events claims that Lee kicked in the door to the guardhouse in a surprise attack, resulting in the same deaths and injuries. Though these accounts vary in their retelling of the events, both memory sequences share cinematographic devices. First, their roles as memories or recollections serve to punctuate the flow of the investigation and bring the audience into the thought process of Major Jean as she discovers new information. Second, they are a few of the rare moments in this film when dramatic, non-diegetic music plays. Loud, frantic strings and deep drum lines flood these scenes with the intensity they would likely produce. The rest of film is almost entirely quiet in terms of music; scenes either rely on ambient noise or soft music that imitates the ambient noise or is played from a cassette tape. This is probably intentional, as these two sequences are also the only ones that turn out to be fabrications of the involved parties. Next, the lighting follows a similar pattern to the rest of the film. The faces of the men are well lit compared to the rest of the scene, either by key lights when an individual is in frame or fill lights when the frame is a two- or three-shot. This is a stark contrast to the bright, well-lit scenes involving Major Jean’s arrival and her direct actions in the investigation, such as the interviews. This lighting also plays an important role in later sequences, when the audience becomes privy to the truth before Major Jean does. Finally, most of the shots in these sequences involve static camera placement with rigid movement. That is, most movement is panning or tracking that is smooth. On rare occasions, the camera becomes free from its tethers and moves as if it is the perspective of someone physically in that space. These devices return throughout the film, to bring an anxious and disheartening tone to the atmosphere.

The less tense mood resurfaces when the sequences end, and Jean continues her investigation by viewing the deceased in the morgue. The discoveries Jean makes here lead here to interview Lee and Nam once again. During Lee’s interview, Jean confronts him about the firearms and the number of rounds fired. As he responds, the room changes from brightly lit by the mid-day sun to dim, as if the moon forced the sun away. Nam attempts to commit suicide when Jean suggests the use of a polygraph test, prompting another flashback. While on patrol, Sergeant Lee mistakenly steps into a trap just enough that it has not triggered but will if he moves at all. Sergeant Oh and Private Jung come across the trapped South Korean soldier and nearly leave him for dead before deciding to save his life. Again, through this nerve-wracking sequence, the only noise other than the dialogue between the three men is the low howl of the wind and the only light is the dim moon. After this moment, Lee expresses gratitude by throwing messages across the bridge to the men who spared him, and they return the gesture. Soon Lee makes the bold move of crossing the bridge and meeting the others within their shack. Despite the cards being stacked against them, the men quickly bond and soon bring in Private Nam as well, giving way to several sequences in which the men play childhood games and bond. All of this fun, however, is stippled with politically charged tension as the men meet in the dead of night and try to avoid their national ideals, with one instance of each pair suggesting the other defect. These nightly meetings are either only filled with dialogue or are only slightly intruded upon by quiet music being played from the South Korean tapes, a cinematographic device to emphasize the covert and dangerous game these men are playing with fate.

After this sequence, Jean, Lee, and Oh meet in a conference building on the border to discuss the events together. Using props set upon the table, Jean comes to the conclusion that a fifth man must have been involved, suspecting it to be Private Nam as a result of his suicide attempt. To test this theory, Jean plays a short clip of Nam during her interview with him and his attempt on his own life. While Oh seems rather unphased by this and the discussion in general, Lee becomes emotionally overwhelmed and begins to cry, at which point Oh brings the whole meeting to an end by lunging at his companion. This is clear to the audience to be a way of silencing Lee and protecting the three surviving friends. Jean likely sees past this ruse, but a revelation regarding her ancestry reveals that her father was a North Korean commanding officer, effecting her removal from the investigative committee. Jean, intrigued by this situation and confident in her conclusion, seeks the truth unofficially and draws it out from Lee after proving she deduced exactly that. Lee recalls the events that exact night in one final flashback.

Somber folk music plays without a source as an extreme, eye-level closeup of Private Nam’s eyes is revealed. A key light illuminates the side of his face near the right side of the frame and then moves to illuminate his whole face. The camera then zooms out slightly to display the shock on his face. Very little back and fill lighting give him the appearance of standing alone in a void. There is a cut to a eye-level shot of Jung from the shoulders up, leaning over a desk against the wall. As he turns his head toward the camera his smile fades. Like Nam, his face and torso stand out starkly, even with dim fill lighting, against the dark background. Another cut takes the camera to and eye-level, closeup shot of Oh smiling at the table in the center of the room. His smile also fades as he turns to the camera, lit by the dim ceiling light above him. Behind him the wall is lit, giving him a physical place in this scene, rather than the voids in which Nam and Jung find themselves. The window on this wall is out of focus, but still shows the intensity of rain pouring down outside. The camera now cuts to a medium two-shot of Nam standing in the doorway and Lieutenant Choi standing in the rain, his back to the camera. This shot observes the 180-degree convention and nearly the shot/reverse-shot pattern as a cut takes the camera to the back of the room presenting a master shot of the whole shack. From left to right are Oh and Lee sitting in the center of the room, Nam and Choi at the door, and Jung on the far, right side of the frame. The ceiling light fills the room with a dull glow. The camera tracks forward slightly as Choi shuts the door behind him, drops his flashlight, and quickly draws his sidearm on Nam. As quickly as the Lieutenant draws, so does the music stop entirely. Only the sound of the rain can be heard behind Nam’s panicked gasps and the shuffling of the other men. At this point, the camera becomes free, as if it has become an active participant in the scene, panning to whomever is speaking and shaking as if nervous. The camera even recoils when Choi hits Oh in the face for fraternizing with the enemy. The shots that follow utilize shifting between different fields of focus to keep the audience looking around or carefully pan and track on motivated movements. The motivation for these movements is usually a character speaking; the camera focuses on a closeup of Lee as he states he will not put down his gun, then tracks back and pans right into a two-shot of Lee and Oh as Oh tries to convince his friend to give up for everyone’s sake. This whole sequence is the tipping point of the film as the audience finally learns what they believe to be the full, unfiltered series of events. It is the culmination of the tensions between the close friends and brings to light a harsh reality about their companionship; As soldiers in enemy states, they have been so indoctrinated with nationalist ideals that even their bond cannot withstand it perfectly. Despite saving Lee’s life in the minefield, Oh and Jung do not have his unwavering trust as he is unwilling to put down his gun. Even Jung is convinced that his best option is to turn on his friends to save himself. This tension that has been building up during their entire relationship finally reaches a breaking point. Nam shoots Choi on pure instinct and fear and Jung goes to shoot Nam for the same reason before being gunned down by both South Koreans. Lee then turns his gun on Oh but a miraculous gun jam saves him from the shellshocked soldier. Everything the men have built and been so careful to protect falls apart in seconds. Even worse is how each nation essentially sweeps this story under the rug as the nature of the large-scale politics outweigh the interactions between pawns such as these men. As General Major Botta of the Swiss Army says, “Here the peace is preserved by hiding the truth. What they both really want is that this investigation proves nothing.” And thus, the defiant friends become nothing more than another handful of soldiers proud of their duty to their country, even if it means gunning down another human.