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Reading the City Seoul, in modernity on Yu Hyeon-mok's Works from the 1960s: Focused on “An Aimless Bullet” and “The School Excursion”

This article is about the City Seoul, in modernity on Yu Hyeon-mok's Works from the 1960s. The background often appears in his movies is postwar Seoul. To understand the Korean cinema after 60’s, people must carefully see the repeated environment in his movies. On the extension of methodology of understanding 60’s Korean cinema, I hope “Reading the City, Seoul” will help the director’s movie viewers to understand modern Korean society. After the liberation, the rapid population growth in Seoul was caused by political reason, which were liberation and division of territory. However the rapid population growth in Seoul in 60’s was caused by industrialization. In “An Aimless Bullet,” the movie shows the life of a displaced family living in the ‘Libertiville’ around Seoul when April Revolution was about to happen. “The School Excursion” shows the pattern of urban space in Seoul that transforms into a development site. This study analyzes the meaning of the characters living in an historical site, Seoul in terms of the symptom of modernity and reviving desire. Firstly, the author focuses on how the character in “An Aimless Bullet.” The character is a deracine, who survived the war but lives in Seoul hopelessly. The author also stresses how Seoul as the space is divided through characters' internal conscious and behavior. Moreover, “The School Excursion” demonstrates the director You’s philosophy between the 60’s, the period that many movies were filmed, the enlightenment film based on national state. The modernization project becomes the director You’s desire to narrative in the movie. This study also analyzes how Seoul is composed according to his desire. This is the process of Modernization project which makes the students from a remote island to go sightseeing throughout Seoul and admire the city and eventually agree to the national Modernization project. The ugly aspect of modernization which was full of frustration and wandering in “An Aimless Bullet” transforms into material prosperity and revealing personal desire as it goes through the rapid and strong modernization controlled by the nation. Through this movie, the director You shows how the Modernization project permeates the Korean society from the City Seoul to the countryside.