By Niya Diamo
Last week, Coventry University East Asian Film Society (CUEAFS) had a very special guest speaker in addition to a powerful movie. Dr. Colette Balmain is the author of ‘An Introduction to Japanese Horror Film’ and an expert on the horror genre, having published many articles on both European and East Asian horror films. She is currently writing and researching material for an upcoming book on Korean horror cinema, focusing on the Gothic and its relationship with the historical and traumatic past.
Dr. Balmain gave a long and interesting talk on the characteristics of South Korean cinema, both in the past and in the present, as well as pointing out the differences between historical periods and films from other nearby regions. She talked about the emerging of Korean horror and explained certain motives, such as ‘otherness’, suffering in the sense of resentment, the contradiction between sisterhood and the rivalry between women and the conspiracy of silence, which were then interesting to see in the screened South Korean film, ‘Shadows in the Palace’.
The film touched upon those delicate ideas and others, such as the power structure within the court yard, as well as the treatment of women by women.
This Wednesday is CUEAFS’s last screening for this term, so don’t miss it, as public screenings will be extremely limited next term. We will be screening another film by a female director, ‘Run Papa Run’, a Hong Kong mixture of genres about a Triad gang leader, trying to conceal his criminal identity from his young daughter.
p.s. the original article, written for The Buzz, consequently published in another version.Labels: cueafs |
