The Force Awakens: An Age without Father

It was too disappointing to watch The Force Awakens (henceforth TFA) for its chaotic structure. It appears as the worst case you can make out of a multi-protagonist film. Despite my distaste of the film, it was the late Carrie Fisher who let me watch the film again since I wanted to see her latest appearance. Though it is unexpected, the well-organized structure of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story made me to reassess the disorder of TFA. It is important to note that Rogue One is cemented by the father’s order while TFA is a conflated story of orphans. Not to mention those evident orphans like Ray and Fin, Luke has been lost doubting his capability to build a new Jedi order in the absence of any mentor (we know he also defeated his father, yeah!), Kylo Ren “wonderfully” dives into the realm of fatherless world, and Poe Dameron? Is it worth to mention this Wedge-like pilot guy here?

There are so many histrionic moments in the movie that audiences would not understand. Those moments are mostly meant to show how Ray finds out ways to feel the Force. It seems ridiculous that a novice (and a scavenger) like her easily resists Kylo Ren, uses Force mind trick to a stormtrooper, and wins the lightsaber battle. Especially when she lets go her Force sensitivity during the duel, the camera stays on her close-up for a long time and Kylo Ren generously waits for her to feel the Force with her eyes closed. For this unnaturalness, in my previous reviews of TFA and Rogue One, I assumed that Ray’s secret of birth would be finally connected to the Skywalker nepotism for her unexplained intuitive talent.

However, it might be understood as a way to find an order in the absence of father. How can we find an order if there is no sacred one like father to judge good and evil? It seems TFA suggests that the solution is supposed to be heuristic. If this is what the filmmakers meant, it is delving more into one’s inner mind than the conventional mode of melodrama does. A typical melodrama protagonist conforms to his/her predetermined psychic role (either good or evil) through his/her words and behaviors. However in TFA, it is not even to be manifested. It is just enough to stay in one’s inner world and does not have to be explained logically. In this sense, now I doubt if Disney would reveal who Ray’s parents are. It might be more disappointing if Ray has actual parents since it can cling Ray to a preexisting order as well as the conventional Hollywood narrative.

I hesitate to assert this, but based on this consideration, I guess Leia was supposed to free Kylo Ren from the dark side of the Force as the father’s attempt (Han Solo) turned out to be infeasible. But is this meaningful at this very moment when we can no longer see Carrie Fisher again? Even if that was Disney’s initial plan, they might have no choice but change it. Anyway, this new perspective of mine makes myself expect what will come in the next Star Wars episode. Of course, this does not cover the lack of creativity of TFA. My criticism against Jar Jar Abrams is still effective. I just hope the next director will show a new horizon of narrative without leaving obtuse cliffhangers.

May the Force be with Carrie Fisher and all of us.

Vanishing Time: A Boy Who Returned

Vanishing Time: A Boy Who Returned

Directed by: Um Tae-hwa

Distributor: Showbox

Starring: Kang Dong-won, Shin Eun-soo, Kim Hee-won, Kwon Hae-hyo, et al.


There were five to seven people in the auditorium today. Two of them were couples. They came late, left early. While watching the movie, these two lovers kept chattering in low frequency and that was a typical fate(?) of an unpopular non-Western film. But after finishing the movie, I came to understand the couple.

That is because this film is specifically for Koreans who remember the sinking of MV Sewol. It means they are ready to be trapped by the disastrous trauma. It is manifested by numerous allegories, such as the detonations for tunneling and the death of kids without being noticed by adults, that are posited by the filmmakers. I hate this kind of explanation the most because it is the easiest and superficial. But this time, I could not find a better one. As Isamail Xavier explained, allegory is used to reconcile the "fixed truth" of the past with the viewpoint of the present, while overcoming the temporal rupture between the two times ("Historical Allegory" 341). This is because the temporal gap gives a room for spatial and temporal conditions to interrupt the past teller's intention when it is interpreted by the present reader (338). For this reason, unlike symbolism which is universal, deciphering of allegory requires the reader's preliminary knowledge as a code as Xavier insisted:

"Here the reader and his or her cultural bias - that is to say, the pole of interpretation - become the major instance responsible for the allegory." (340)


So it is not surprising the couple (and another guy who came alone) left the theater in the midst of the film. The real question is; was the allegory effective to Korean audiences? My answer is no. The central sentiment in this film is the different passages of time between the survivor and the victim. As I remember, such a sentiment was represented either by quotes ("You should wear uniforms and enjoy school life. Don't abandon them for me.") or by the actors' cryings.

More to blame is the typical temporal order of the narrative. Although the narrative contains aspects of thriller, it was too bad that everything was revealed to the spectator too easily. I think a simple shuffling of scene could have accrued tension, but the story was shown so linearly as possible. So for me, the film became just a boring fantasization of the marine disaster.

Cited work:
Xavier, Ismail. "Historical Allegory." A Companion to Film Theory, edited by Toby Miller and Robert Stam, Blackwell Publishing, 1999, pp. 333-361.