The Invention of the Other, Ethics, and the Question of “Geopolitical Unconscious” in Contemporary Korean Films: Silmido, TaeGukGi: Brotherhood of War, and Shiri

Abstract

By analysing Silmido (2003), TaeGukGi: Brotherhood of War (2004) and, finally, Shiri (1998), this paper discusses how each film works to respond to an encounter with the traumatic Other. The representation of the Other necessarily leads us to raise the issue of ethics. The term “ethics” here refers precisely to “ethics of the Real” (Zupan?i? 2000) in which the subject redefines the mode of being in this encounter with the traumatic Real, thus becoming a true subject. One of the prevailing tropes of contemporary Korean film is the way in which the protagonist’s suicide keeps utopian impulses permanently parenthesised through the logic of sacrifice. Silmido and TaeGukGi demonstrate this. In contrast, Shiri opens up the inherent contradictions of all such ideas by revealing that the female protagonist maintains fidelity towards her own “acts” without being drawn into the logic of sacrifice. In so doing, this film enables us to cognitively map out the “geopolitical unconscious” of South Korea, i.e., the unrepresentable totality of the current South Korean capitalist system.