SOUTH KOREA: Made in Korea – With Great Difficulty

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Francesca Buglioni Dziadek

BERLIN, Feb 29 1996 (IPS) - A ‘Made in Korea’ tag inside a garment would not normally provoke thought about this liberal, fast-paced Asian nation and the achievements of its technologically advanced economy and highly skilled industrial workforce.

The film ‘A Single Spark’, by director Park Kwang-Su, may make people think more deeply. It illuminates a dark corner of Korea’s recent history: the appalling labour conditions of the 1960’s and 1970’s that made the 1990’s boom possible.

Backing rapid industrialisation at any price, the regime of president Park Chung-Hee in the 1970’s clamped down on dissent and gave free rein to the demands of its export-led economic policies, resulting in one of the most repressive periods in Korea’s history.

Park Kwang-Su is regarded as one of South Korea’s foremost independent directors. ‘A Single Spark’ is his second major feature dealing with aspects of Korea’s history which he believes should not be forgotten in the more liberal 1990’s.

In recent years, South Korea’s economy has been developing at high speed, says Park Kwang-Su said, in Berlin for a screening of his movie at the city’s prestigious film festival. “But a country cannot do this at the expense of the spiritual side. Many people forget today about the dissidents who struggled for democracy, and the struggles of the 1960’s and 70’s which have got us where we are today.”

On Nov. 13, 1970, Jeon Tae-Il, a 22-year-old textile worker and activist committed suicide, setting fire to himself on the streets of Seoul’s Pyung-Hwa market. He died shouting “We are not machines” and “Comply with labour laws”.

His death was an act of despair at the lack of progress in the fight for recognition of basic rights, such as health and safety measures, a day off a week and a minimum wage.

“This one act of exceptional courage was the beginning of a slow trail of change and democratisation,” says Park. “It was very pivotal in shaping the workers’ movement in our country and soon after that many people started thinking about and dealing with the question of the worth of a human life.”

The film is set in 1975, a time recalled by Koreans as the ‘Dark Ages’. Park had imposed martial law in October 1972, and the years after that were marked by a highly repressive political climate.

In ‘A Single Spark’, student Kim Yong-Su is hiding from the authorities while writing the biography of young labour leader Tae- Il. Researching the book is dangerous. Kim Yong-Su slowly traces the life of Jeon Tae-Il from his teenage days selling umbrellas in the street, through to his campaigns as a garment industry activist up to the day of his death.

Flashbacks to the sweatshop conditions of the 1960’s filmed in black and white show the cramped work attics where young women workers worked sewing machines 15 hours at a time.

Kept awake through the night with pep pills and intravenous injections when order deadlines demand, one keels over spitting blood, sick with tuberculosis. Tae-Il takes the case to the press and thence to the Labour ministry, but without result. So Tae makes the supreme sacrifice.

Born in 1955 and growing up in Pusan, a small village in the southern Korea, Park was 15 years old when Tae-Il died.

“I remember people talking about it, but rather hushedly and it was not the sort of thing we would have discussed in my family. My father and his family originate from North Korea and he was an anti-communist who had run off to southern Korea.”

But when Park started experimenting with film in the mid- 1970’s, the story came back to him and stayed with him ever since.

“The film was an extraordinary case, and making it was a challenge in many senses as we faced hurdles in all directions, from the point of view of having our main theme accepted and finding required finances.”

The film’s other problem was the reconstruction of the period involved.

“Here in Europe you have many old buildings,” said Park. “In Korea, the pace of development means that it is difficult today to even find a 60’s tenement or industrial site. The old mining towns too are fast disappearing, we filmed on one of the few remaining ones to achieve a realistic effect. We had to reconstruct the factory scenes after a lot of research, as today’s factories are very different.”

With a budget requirement of 2.2 million U.S. dollars and with no help forthcoming from the Korean Motion Picture Promotion Corporation, 30 percent of the funding was raised through a public advertisement in the local press.

With the catchy slogan “You too can co-produce” an advertisement in one of Korea’s largest daily newspapers invited people from all walks of life to donate a sum from 30 dollars upwards to get the film made.

“The idea proved enormously successful, we had a total of 7,600 stakes from all over the country, from politicians to trade union officials.”

Despite the film’s favourable reception in Berlin, it is not clear when it will can be seen by wider audiences. A representative for the Dutch distributors said selling the film will be difficult, as Korean films are “not as marketable as films from China or Hong Kong”.