National Security

Room 515 at the infamous National Security headquarters, September 1985. The military regime cruelly persecutes its presumed enemies – including Kim Geun-tae, a father and pro-democracy activist. The security forces try to extract a confession concerning his collaboration with North Korean communists. When Kim refuses to yield, the authorities bring in brutal interrogator Lee Doo-han, known as The Undertaker. Though inspired by real events, this openly brutal film makes a more general statement. It succeeds in building an oppressive atmosphere by focusing on events inside the prison while consciously ignoring the flow of time in the outside world. With this provocative film, Chung Ji-young has opened a painful chapter in South Korean history. What’s more, he did so shortly before the presidential election won by Park Geun-hye, daughter of former general and president Park Chung-hee, who established the regime that laid the foundations for the brutal conditions of the 1980s. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)