The Gwangju uprising in films: politics of memory and narrative

Abstract

The Gwangju Uprising is one of the remarkable democratic movements in the contemporary South Korean society as it depicted the brutality of the military government. Thus, the incident had influenced the later democratic movement. Though more than 40 years had passed, the memory of the incident still made it present in Korean society. The narrative of the incident had been repeatedly told not only to commemorate the sacrificial of the people but it was also a part of memory politics of remembering and forgetting. The memory of the uprising was depicted through several medias including films to integrate its own narrative that responded to the social believe. In this article, I had selected 3 films, May 18 (2007), 26 Years (2012), และ A Taxi Driver (2017) that recreated the memory of the Gwangju Uprising which emphasized the desire truth of the uprising through the perception of the producers. As the reproduction of the Gwangju Uprising through films was a part of the politics of memory which shaped the social’s memory of the uprising.