Architecture and Japanese Colonialism – Cinematic Image of Cityscape in Occupied Seoul
Krzysztof Loska
krzysztof.loska@uj.edu.plJagiellonian University (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4078-798X
Abstract
Assuming that the relations between architecture and cinema should be considered not only in terms of aesthetics, but also in a broader political context, Loska analyzes the way in which urban scenery contributes to the creation of national mythology and nostalgic images. The subject of his analysis are contemporary Korean films set during the period of Japanese colonization, including 2009: Lost Memories (dir. Lee Si-myung, 2002), Modern Boy (dir. Jung Ji-woo, 2008) and Private Eye (dir. Park Dae-min, 2009). Loska emphasizes that the fashion for retro films is a part of a revisionist historical strategy and constitutes an attempt at rewriting the past. Recreating traces of the presence of the Japanese occupiers – through digital reconstructions of pre-war Seoul – does not lead to a critical reflection on colonialism but serves to create a specific narrative, with members of the resistance movement as the main protagonists of these films.
Keywords:
Korean cinema, Japanese colonialism, architecture, urban spaceReferences
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Authors
Krzysztof Loskakrzysztof.loska@uj.edu.pl
Jagiellonian University Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4078-798X
Professor of Human Sciences and the Director of the Institute of Audiovisual Arts at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. He is the vice-president of the Polish Society for Film and Media Studies and member of Editorial Advisory Board of the bi-monthly Ekrany. He has authored 150 papers and dissertations on media, popular culture, film history and Japanese cinema, published in various journals (Kwartalnik Filmowy, Studia Filmoznawcze, Przegląd Kulturoznawczy, Ekrany, Kultura Współczesna, Ethos) and edited volumes. He has published twelve books (in Polish), e.g. Dziedzictwo McLuhana – między nowoczesnością a ponowoczesnością [McLuhan’s Legacy. Between Modernity and Postmodernity] (2001), Poetyka filmu japońskiego [Poetics of Japanese Cinema] (2009), Kenji Mizoguchi i wyobraźnia melodramatyczna [Kenji Mizoguchi and the Melodramatic Imagination] (2012), Nowy film japoński [New Japanese Cinema] (2013), Mistrzowie kina japońskiego [Masters of Japanese Film] (2015) and Postkolonialna Europa. Etnoobrazy współczesnego kina [Postcolonial Europe: Ethnoscapes of Contemporary Cinema] (2016).
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