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[HanCinema's Film Review] "DongJu, The Portrait of A Poet"

Once upon a time DongJu (played by Kang Ha-neul) was a young poet living under Japanese Occupation, one place or another. The thirties, sadly enough, were the apex of empire-building the world over, and there are certain ethical questions DongJu runs up against constantly. Is it morally acceptable to help the Japanese Empire in any capacity? Is it ethically sound to be a poet rather than a doctor in an age where doctors seem way more important? Is it wise to express political opinions at all? How far can one go in the name of resistance before fighting back becomes foolhardy?

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"DongJu, The Portrait of A Poet" doesn't sugarcoat any of these questions. Director Lee Joon-ik has crafted a black-and-white period film that's surprisingly accurate to the grey moral ambiguity of the time period, back before the history books retconned it into "good versus evil". At one point Auschwitz is invoked, not as attempted genocide against the Jews, but as the kind of horrible deed a weak culture (the Polish) can be forced into committing against its own people if they lack proper resolve.

And here's the real mind-bender- this argument is used to justify the actions of the Japanese. DongJu and especially his more militant friend, novelist Mong-gyoo (played by Park Jung-min) run up against these ethical quandaries constantly. Is Communism Korea's only hope for independence, or simply brutality under a new name? The question's more difficult to answer than it sounds, given how at this point in history Communists were the only political faction who had ever successfully rebelled against any oppressive government anywhere.

Which leads into the poetry. DongJu doesn't know the answer to any of these questions. It's a struggle for him to even vaguely guess the answers. Every heated political discussion makes DongJu recoil just a little bit more into poetry, forced to put his philosophical thoughts into an abstract context he can understand. In the chaos of war, poetry is the only apparent truth.

That's the secret behind most great writing- it comes not from proper preparation and process, but from the inconsolable desire to create sense from that which is inherently insensible. How else to explain the tendency of so many young artists to die alone and unknown, or how even older artists are able to fall into funks of extreme depression, desperately trying to reconcile ideals of hope with a world that demands some form of faux practicality over dreams?

Alas, DongJu and Mong-gyoo never managed to get that far. Perhaps in that sense they were lucky, given the chaos that ensued after the war, as a mostly impotent Korea was forced into another conflict of great ideologies which rather inevitably managed to betray their own principles for a short-term geo-political advantage. Incredibly, that fate of being murdered by fellow Koreans for no reason sounds even more horrible than what actually happened to the two young men- used as test subjects by men who they knew to be enemies. If that sounds awful, well, that's what the poetry is for- spiritual escape, for when the physical is impossible.

Review by William Schwartz

"DongJu, The Portrait of A Poet" is directed by Lee Joon-ik and features Kang Ha-neul, Park Jung-min, Kim In-woo and Choi Hong-il.

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