Antarctic Journal - A Dot On The Map

May

14

Antarctic Journal - A Dot On The Map

≡ Category: Drama, Korea, Movie Reviews By Country, Not Worth Your Time |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Country: Korea
Genre: Drama
Director: Pil-Sung Yim
Year: 2005

Rating:

NOT WORTH YOUR TIME

Antarctic Journal has an odd subject for a Korean movie. A group of explorers, led by Choi Do-hyung (Kang-ho Song) decide to go further into the Antarctic than any previous explorers. Why? Because, as one character notes, explorers live to put themselves in extreme situations and conquer the elements.

This is an extremely unusual sentiment for a Korean, or for a Southeast Asian person in general. Southeast Asians tend to be obsessed by survival and family, more or less in that order. If they are going to take risks, it will be in business, not something as ephemeral as conquering the elements.

That said, in any culture, even one as practical as that of Korea, there will be a few hardy individuals who defy the culture and become artists or explorers, not by choice, you understand, but because their personalities forbid them to be anything else.

The characters in Antarctic Journal are these sorts of people.

I know that I’m harping on this, but believe me, it’s important to the story. It’s so important that one of the characters actually brings it up.

So, what happens in Antarctic Journal?

There are the usual disasters and near disasters you might expect, like falling through the ice into caverns and unexpected snowstorms, known as whiteouts, but stranger events are afoot. The scientific instruments start to fail for various reasons. Some of the explorers start to hallucinate and otherwise lose their marbles. There may be a supernatural presence close by or perhaps long buried alien creatures. What is actually going on? Why is this happening? Who cares?

The problem with Antarctic Journal is that nothing that’s going on connects or comments on the experience of being Korean or in a larger context, on being human. That’s what stories are supposed to do. Instead, Antarctic Journal functions as a disconnected series of anecdotes, signifying nothing.

Thanks to the usual Korean combination of good acting and fine cinematography, I managed to suspend my disbelief and interest for forty five minutes or so, but by then I was basically forced to give up on the movie.

I was right to do so, too. The big revelation that climaxes the film is that anyone who risks their life being an explorer is an idiot. That opinion, of course, as I mentioned earlier in this review, is the societal norm for Korea. This is a particularly bald example of the tendency of filmmakers, in any culture, of feeding back the preconceptions of an audience to make them feel smart.

Of course, it irritates me because it’s not an American value. To me, the world desperately needs dreamers and artists, even though it generally treats them like dirt. For example, without the Apollo space program, which cost many lives, many inventions which have enriched life on earth would not have happened.

More importantly, aside from the supposed philosophical revelation that concludes Antarctic Journal, the movie adds up to exactly nothing. It’s a complete and utter waste of time.

I should mention that Kang-ho Song, who stars in the movie, also co-wrote the script. On the basis of this film, he should probably stick to acting.