[Oh My Star] A Day in the Lives of Women Imprisoned by the State 50 Years Ago—You Can Hear the Wailing
Published August 5, 2021 - Source
By Shin Jeong-a
The 25th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN), held over ten days starting July 8, adopted the theme “Stay Strange.” The theme implies that even stories that feel unfamiliar or strange to some can blossom into fully realized talents through BIFAN, if they are nurtured with conviction. This year’s “Beyond Reality” exhibition at BIFAN implemented strict quarantine measures and a reservation system to limit visitors, allowing a total of 3,067 attendees to experience cinema’s new reality. The exhibition featured over 80 works, including a Baobab Studios special exhibition, the XR3 Korea showcase, BIFAN×Unity Short Film Challenge winners, and immersive content produced by the Korea Cultural Heritage Foundation.
Gina Kim’s “Comfort Women Trilogy,” Part Two: TearlessGina Kim’s VR documentary Tearless, showcased through the “Beyond Reality” exhibition, was invited to the VR competition section of the 78th Venice International Film Festival. Tearless is the only Korean work selected for the Venice VR competition this year and is the second film in Gina Kim’s trilogy on “Comfort Women Trilogy.” The previous installment, Bloodless, received the Best VR Story award at the 74th Venice International Film Festival in 2017.
Director Gina Kim provided the following explanation on her website regarding the “US Military Comfort Women”:
“US Military Comfort Women” refers to sex workers who, under the direction of the South Korean government, were made to serve U.S. soldiers stationed near military bases in Korea. Traditionally, the term ‘comfort women’ has referred to sex slaves who were forced to serve the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.
However, this term is increasingly being used to refer to all forms of coerced prostitution involving foreign soldiers, carried out under state control. In 2018, the Seoul High Court partially acknowledged the government’s liability in a damages lawsuit filed by former base camp women and urged compensation. In its ruling, the court officially used the term “US Military Comfort Women.”
In the first installment of the “US Military Comfort Women” series, Bloodless (2017), director Gina Kim revisited the brutal 1992 murder of Yoon Geum-i, a Korean woman killed by a U.S. soldier. The second work, Tearless (2021), reconstructs a space known as the “Monkey House,” which was used in the early 1970s to detain and treat base camp women suspected of having sexually transmitted infections. Since the Korean War, an average of approximately 25,000 U.S. soldiers have been stationed in South Korea each year. At one point, the total area of U.S. military bases in Korea reached nearly 17.7% of South Korea’s usable landmass. The South Korean and U.S. governments cooperated in establishing 96 base camp towns around U.S. military bases—complete with prostitution infrastructure—ultimately subjecting an estimated one million women to sexual slavery.
During the 1970s military regime, under U.S. pressure to reduce STI rates among its troops, the South Korean government mandated STI testing for base camp women and required them to display the results on their chest at all times. Women who showed possible symptoms during the biweekly mandatory tests—as well as those without visible number tags or those identified by U.S. soldiers as disease carriers—were forcibly taken to the Monkey House. The Monkey House functioned as a detention center for “failures”—women who did not pass or refused the tests—where they were forcibly quarantined.
The women confined in the detention center were administered high doses of penicillin without proper testing, leading to severe side effects. In one tragic case, a woman who attempted to escape the facility out of fear of treatment and medication jumped from the rooftop and died. The nickname “Monkey House” came from the image of detained women hanging from the windows and screaming to be let out - reminiscent, cruelly, of monkeys in a zoo. This detention center for test “failures” continued to operate until 2004, and the building still stands today.
Hearing the Wails and Screams Etched into the Space
The opening scene of Tearless shows the exterior of an old, unsightly building standing against the backdrop of Soyosan. To those unaware of the building’s history, it may appear to be just an old structure—but for viewers who know the decades of barbarity that occurred there, entering it is a fearful act. As the viewer gazes at the building with conflicted emotions, the screen soon transitions to its interior.
Though it is midday, the interior is dim and shadowy. The first destination is a communal bedroom. On bunk beds arranged in a military-style dormitory layout, pillows are tightly lined up in rows. Only one of the beds is covered with a black blanket—as if someone had just woken up and left the room moments ago. The next area is a communal shower room, a wash basin, and a doorless toilet. As the viewer hears the steady drip of water and looks around the interior, used-looking toothbrushes and toiletries gradually appear at the sink.
As if following the path of someone who just left the bedroom and washed up, the next location transitions to a dining hall. In the empty space, the image of the dining area is reconstructed: tables, chairs, and a meal tray prepared for one. What seemed like the flow of a mundane daily routine is overturned in a treatment room recreated with a gynecological exam chair and blood-stained instruments. It’s a stark depiction that no one confined here was ever allowed a normal life.
The spaces and props featured in the film are reconstructed based on the testimonies of the victims and daily schedules discovered at the site. Director Gina Kim describes the history left behind in this place as “terror and shame.” The sobs and screams, the fear and dread of the women harmed by state power are etched into the very architecture and ruins of the facility. Soon after, rain begins to fall outside the hallway window as night falls. Amidst the sound of the rain, the audience hears the sobs of a woman. What starts as quiet whimpering gradually grows into a deep, resounding wail, blending with the intensifying rain.
The director summons the pain of someone long gone into the present moment. She guides the audience to directly experience that the time these women lived in this space is still flowing, even now, right here. The long stream of cigarette smoke exhaled by the woman in the poster is her final breath, sent to herself at the end of a lonely life with no one to save her. What makes her slow walk toward the rooftop all the more heartbreaking is the sight of her tattered skirt hem. The audience, having witnessed her final moments in that same space, becomes a witness to the scene of the Monkey House.
Director Gina Kim states the following about her intentions in making the film:
“I hope Tearless can serve as a small contribution to documenting and preserving the space known as the Monkey House, while also revealing the stories of the military comfort women who were forced into silence between the U.S. and South Korean governments.” (From Gina Kim’s production notes)
A VR documentary is a “storydoing” content format in which the viewer actively explores and empathizes with the narrative inside a space reconstructed by the director. Through one-on-one communication with the viewer, the director presents the incidents, sites, traces, and voices that must not be forgotten by our generation. Even if viewers don’t undergo the exact same experiences or emotions, encountering historical events in virtual reality offers a chance to reflect on ourselves and our present. Literary critic Hwang Hyeon-san once described the ethics of memory as follows:
“Only memory can thicken the present. For some, the present may be no bigger than a handkerchief right in front of them. But for others, the horror of serial killings, the oppression of the Yushin era, the tragedy of the Korean War, the struggles of the colonial period, and the suffering of all those who endured because of their conscience and hope—all of it belongs to the present. Whether aesthetic or social, the entirety of one’s sensitivity and insight is determined by how broad their sense of the present is.” (Hwang Hyeon-san, Night Is the Teacher)
Gina Kim’s Tearless is a form of content activism that brings renewed attention to crimes by U.S. forces in South Korea—crimes that are still ongoing—and calls for empathy and solidarity with the lives of women sacrificed by state power.