Yamagata: Annyong-Kimchi

[Aaron Gerow]

I felt _Annyong Kimchi_ was a very interesting film, both for what it did 
and did not do.  A product of Imamura/Sato's Japan Film Academy, Matsue 
effectively combined some of the elements of traditional 
documentary--interviews, archival materials, voice-over--with elements of 
personal documentary--confession, personal narration, etc.--in a unified 
composition with good pace, good humor, and a nice "gag" ending.

Since, Markus mentioned some of the problems in discussing politics with 
Matsue, so I thought I'd continue that with a discussion of how some of 
this is reflected in the film.  In fact, I found the work fascinating as 
much in Matsue's ignorance as in what he was trying to do.  While the 
film ostensibly is about him rediscovering his Korean roots (or identity) 
and the problems involved in that, it is also clear there's a lot about 
the issue that escapes him. Still, the fact he is but one character on 
screen makes the film more complex than it threatened to be. On screen, 
he seems to take it for granted that racial roots should be the basis of 
one's identity, but having his sister do much of the voice-over (with him 
treated in the third-person) not only distances the film from personal 
documentary, it also distances the text from his perspective and opens it 
to critique (though that is not, I felt, sufficiently pursued).  Being a 
character, however, he also seemingly becomes an actor: there are several 
points in the film (such as when he breaks down crying when returning 
home after drinking) in which one wonders how this was shot (i.e., staged 
or not), who was shooting, and what was the intention (the tendency to 
emotionalize being a problem).

Much of these problems revolve around the issue of identity and come to 
head at the end of the film.  In asking his relatives about their sense 
of identity, he gives them flags from which to pick and express their 
Japanese, Korean, etc. identities.  Clearly it is a good visual tactic 
and works well with the final gag, but it reflects the film's general 
conflation of racial, cultural, and national identities.  The very fact 
this year was the year when debates over Hinomaru should make it clear 
that the "national" flag does not equal the "nation," that Japan is not a 
singular entity, that a race does not equal a nation, etc., should have 
made someone more hesitant about this strategy (in discussions with him 
afterwards, he conceded this was a problem, though defended its use on 
cinematic grounds).  To the film's credit, the same overall comedic tone 
does provide a certain distance from this "flag=nation=personal identity" 
equation, but I'm afraid I did feel Matsue has not fully thought through 
the issue of identity--possibly because he has refused to politicize it.

Aaron Gerow
Associate Professor
International Student Center
Yokohama National University
79-1 Tokiwadai
Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama 240-8501
JAPAN
E-mail: gerow at ynu.ac.jp
Phone: 81-45-339-3170
Fax: 81-45-339-3171