(Park Flower’s Movie Garden) The reason why director Park Chan-wook directs the story of ‘Another Country’

In 1979, an unknown British actor was offered the role of ‘Spy’ by an unknown person. However, this work is not a story that takes place on stage. It is part of a dangerous ‘espionage operation’ in which you have to perform a secret performance as if you were a real spy in reality off stage. Those trying to recruit him are the Israeli intelligence agency, which is tracking Palestinian militants. The unknown actor, who begins to feel an unknown attraction to dubious role-playing, eventually accepts the offer and intuition that the more he acts, the more he will be caught in a complicated political conflict between Palestine and Israel.

If you listen to the work without knowing it, you will probably guess that it is a spy film directed by a director from Europe or the Middle East whose name is unfamiliar to you. Knowing the facts can come as a bit of a surprise. This is the storyline of ‘The Little Drummer Girl’, a 6-episode drama directed by director Park Chan-wook. It was broadcast through BBC in the UK and AMC in the US in 2018, and from 2019, it was released on Watcha under the title of ‘Little Drummer Girl: Director’s Edition’, and it is a work that can still be viewed.

Even with the name ‘Park Chan-wook’, there may be readers who are hesitant to willingly give time. No matter how sharp conflicts between Israel and Palestine have been drawing the attention of the world for decades, there will not be many audiences who will pay much attention to the situation in a distant country about 8000 km away from Korea. In 2019, a similar question came up at a press conference when ‘Little Drummer Girl: Director’s Cut’ was unveiled for the first time in Korea. It’s a material that doesn’t seem to have much contact with Koreans, so why should I spend time watching this work? Although it is a bit cold-hearted, it was a question I wanted to hear from the director at least once. At that time, director Park Chan-wook said this without much hesitation.

“The good thing about literature and movies is that they help us discover a world we didn’t know. (…) How lonely it would be if people from other countries around the world were not interested when our country was going through various things such as division, cold war, confrontation, war, and danger.”

That may have been the answer that represents the ‘role’ of popular art in director Park Chan-wook’s mind. Entertainment films that are perfect for killing time, such as the ‘Crime City’ series, must have their own function, but the ultimate power of creation lies in making them ponder the lives of others they have not personally experienced. If understanding other people’s circumstances is an inevitable training that we, born as humans, have to repeat until we die, the value of movies, dramas, and novels that dramatically expand our understanding of someone in a relatively short period of time is, as he said, not small. will be.

Director Park Chan-wook chose to direct the HBO drama ‘The Sympathizer’ as a new work after ‘Decision to Break Up’, which was released last year, and said that he had already finished filming. This work is also a dramatization of the story of a Vietnamese-American who works as a double agent. As much as ‘Little Drummer Girl’, it is a new work that could be ‘the story of another country’ for domestic audiences. Director Park Chan-wook took part in a conversation with Netflix CEO Tess Sarandos, which was revealed on the 22nd, and appeared for a while. At this time, when asked, ‘What is a good movie? They told almost identical stories. Listening to it again, it seems that it can be interpreted as the promise of a master who survived in an era overflowing with so many movies and dramas that it is too much to watch.

“I think a ‘good movie’ is something that expands the narrow and limited ego. Everyone has a limited experience, and the number of people you meet is obvious. If movies can realistically show us a different kind of world from the place where our family and friends live, and allow us to be ‘connected’ to it, wouldn’t we be able to broaden ourselves a little more?”