Cult (2)
37.
When Gyeongseong Geul settled on a theme, it would often reveal it through social media.
It was a kind of prologue meant to heighten anticipation, and the readers reacted exactly as expected. -So that’s how it is. Gyeongseong Publishing couldn’t just let the “Soop” phenomenon pass by.
-The anonymous reviewer moved Gyeongseong Publishing! I’m getting goosebumps~
-People really hate it when you mention independent magazines so directly these days. Is this okay?
-So that’s why they chose “cult,” right?
-Cult is way better. Honestly, if you’re a real fan of independent magazines, you shouldn’t just obsess over independent mags alone. You should understand cult first. -An old cult-music fan passing by, now in his fifteenth year.
-Lately everyone’s been saying “independent, independent” so much I thought we’d gone back to the colonial era. Come on. The indie-mag craze was just a phase. Talk about something more essential, something more artistic. That’s what Gyeongseong Geul readers want.
Gyeongseong Geul readers were, by nature, hungry for knowledge.
What kind of person reads a literary magazine and isn’t?
For them, “cult” was exactly the right keyword.
It connected to the current trend while still keeping what people called “standards” intact.
Meanwhile, the other quarterlies were in a different situation altogether.
The moment they made independent magazines their theme, that crowd came charging in like a pack. -Trying to piggyback on the popularity of indie magazines? lol
-Now you care? Didn’t the literary establishment ignore us until now?
-Oh, so now you’re all crying boycott;;;; you opportunistic bastards.
That was roughly the tone.
Well, the quarterly magazine people must have expected that much.
It was part of the price they had to pay. Then, tonight, out of nowhere, the editor-in-chief Im called me.
-This is about something else, but I thought you should know in advance. You said the editorial criticism column wouldn’t be covering independent-magazine fiction, right?
“Yes. That’s correct.”
-Then what are you planning to cover?
Why was he asking me this now?
There was no reason for me to reveal what genre I would be tackling.
If the piece turned out badly, we could cut it in editorial meeting and be done with it.
He wasn’t the sort of person who would be kind enough to even give me a “conferment,” much less anything like that.
...Ah.
He was curious.
What exactly Mok Hyunsun was going to write about “cult.” And he had probably already guessed that I was Soop.
He must have been even more curious about my plan. There was no particular need to hide it.
In fact, I had already decided on the genre.
“I’m planning to cover cult films.”
-Movies? Why?
“For one thing, cult is the most developed in film across all fields. And it’s easier for readers to approach.”
-...
“Personally, I’ve wanted to write about film once more since Nevertheless.”
When else would I get the chance to deal with film except when the theme was cult?
-Anything else you need to report to me?
He was subtly urging me to admit that I was Soop.
But I had no intention of taking the bait.
“Haha, I don’t think so.”
-...Fine. I wish you good luck. His tone suggested he would watch and see.
Either way, that was the end of the call.
“Cult films, huh.”
Of course, I did not know film as well as I knew novels.
But hadn’t I learned in Nevertheless?
Film was ultimately a matter of “screenwriting.” And before choosing the films, there was one thing I needed to do.
Thud. I set my hand on the stack of books on my desk.
Cult Theory
What Is Cult?
This Sublime Blasphemy, Cult
...
...
...
A dozen or so books on cult theory.
I intended to stuff these into my head first.
─┼
The next day.
After wrapping up work, I caught Senior Yoon.
“You’re writing the editorial criticism column on cult films?”
“Yes. But I’m not exactly well versed in film, so I was hoping you could recommend a few.”
“? You could just search online.”
“That’s a little lacking. I need the perspective of a real film nut. Senior, you’re always filming Novel N Movie, aren’t you?”
In truth, if I searched, cult films would pour out by the dozen.
There were plenty of blogs that even laid out the history in obsessive detail.
But I couldn’t tell which among them held information that actually mattered.
There was the showy, knowledge-flashing kind of geekery, and right alongside it, the sly habit of hiding the important stuff. And when I’d visited Senior Yoon’s place before, I’d seen stacks of movie DVDs I’d never even heard of, much less watched.
“I figured you’d be interested in cult films, Senior.”
“W-well, I am.” He still didn’t look all that eager. “It feels a little unfair to hand over the precious collection I’ve devoted my whole life to all at once, to you of all people.”
“...”
That slyness.
He was definitely a geek.
And geeks were, above all else, vulnerable to praise.
“Ah, I guess I didn’t explain myself properly.”
“?”
“I need the ‘living’ perspective of a ‘true’ film geek.”
I didn’t know why, but geeks were strangely fixated on authenticity.
Senior Yoon’s mouth twitched as well. The desire to hide his collection.
The desire to show off to a “muggle.”
I could see those two impulses churning inside him. Then, finally...
“...Come with me.”
The latter won.
After the courtesy of treating Senior Yoon to dinner, we went together to his officetel.
Conveniently, tomorrow was the weekend, so we could watch movies all through the night.
Still, the human heart really was shameless.
Last time I came here, I had thought I’d have no complaints if I could live in a place like this.
Now that I’d lived in an apartment for a while, this place looked cramped.
“My place has two rooms. One’s the bedroom, and the other’s been turned into a movie-watching room.”
He was even more of a film fanatic than I’d expected.
The DVDs he’d kept by the bookshelf had simply been overflow, too many to fit in the room.
Click. He opened the small room door that had been closed shut.
“Shall I welcome you into the world of Yoon Seo-hoon’s taste?”
...That’s disgusting, honestly.
The world of a dark-haired man’s taste.
I had no desire to know it for as long as I lived.
“I’ll go in by myself. If you just give me the DVDs and screenplays, I think I can manage.”
“No. I need to stand beside you and act like I know things. When else would I get a chance like this?”
As you wish.
With no choice, I went into the room with him.
The room was packed with DVDs and screenplays, and he filtered through them at astonishing speed, pulling a pile toward him.
“World masterpieces. Heh. You probably can’t even read the titles, right? They’re not even in English. Italian and Mexican cult films are the real deal, you know. They’re nothing like those Hollywood things where money gets dumped all over the screen~ They dominated the history of cult cinema, and blah blah blah...”
“If they dominated history, then they’re not really ‘cult,’ are they? Doesn’t ‘cult’ mean a minority taste?”
“...Oh.”
Senior Yoon looked as though someone had slapped him from behind.
As if a crack had split his pride in his impeccable taste, one he could never fully repair.
“...Just watch the damn movie.”
While Senior Yoon put on the first film, I opened the translated screenplay book.
“? You’re going to watch it at the same time? You can do that?”
“Yes.”
“...You can do that?”
I said I could.
From there, I began watching the things people called the masterpieces of cult cinema.
Those films were much shorter than commercial movies,
ending in forty minutes to an hour and a half.
Flap, flap, flap...
The screenplay pages turned wildly as well.
But the problem was,
“So? Pretty insane, right?”
“...Hm.”
“Damn, isn’t it incredible? That director’s a genius.”
“Is he?”
“That one was the first cult film to win an award in Britain, you know? Amazing, right?”
“Hm. I see.”
It meant I wasn’t feeling it.
Most of the films were from Europe and South America.
They had an unfamiliar, alien quality by default,
though that was probably because they came from a different culture.
And the themes those films dealt with: murder, religion, sex, hallucination, and so on.
They were all provocative.
Fine. Provocation I could accept.
But the intention to shock the audience was too obvious,
or maybe the attempt had been brilliant in the past but was now far too familiar.
In other words, there was no film that felt cultish now.
This was a problem.
Meanwhile, Senior Yoon grew frantic at my tepid reaction.
“Are you serious? You don’t like a single one of these masterpieces?”
“Are there any Korean ones? I think I’ve more or less seen everything foreign.”
“Korean? Ahh—Korea’s weak in that area. How’s a Korean, soaked through with Confucian culture, supposed to bring out that cult feeling, huh?”
“If they’re soaked through with Confucian culture, they might do better out of sheer backlash.”
“You can’t even keep your mouth shut, can you? Wait a bit. There are some, at least.”
Senior Yoon rummaged through the DVD shelf.
“It’s a pity, really, but the films people make these days and call cult are so low-level I didn’t even bother collecting them. The old ones are a bit better, so I bought those... Ah. Here it is. Director Kim Gi-woon’s Saekdong.”
“Saekdong? I’ve never even heard of Kim Gi-woon.”
Even the DVD did not seem to be an official release.
It was in a clear case, with “Saekdong” written in marker on the front.
“Hm. He was a tragic director. He worked during the black-and-white film era and died of a chronic illness after leaving behind only this one film.”
“If it was black-and-white film, that was ages ago.”
“Yeah. A 1950s film. I couldn’t get the screenplay, though. That okay?”
“Yes. I’ll just watch it.”
In truth, I had already sensed something unusual.
A black-and-white film called Saekdong.
What irony was that supposed to be?
And then the film began.
Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang—!
A woman with a fierce gaze danced a knife dance.
She held knives in both hands and danced with exhilarating abandon.
The hanbok she wore was the multicolored shamanic robe used by mudang.
The woman was not a shaman, but a kisaeng.
The drunken revelry of the men spilling out before her was vulgar, but each time the camera cut back to the dancing woman, the mood turned cold.
It felt as though she were about to kill someone at any moment.
Dance.
Knife.
Clothes.
Those three elements scrambled my vision.
Without a single line of dialogue, it radiated killing intent.
In one word, it was a film unfriendly to the masses,
a film that communicated not through plot, but through sensation and feeling.
Still, if I had to put it in plain terms, it went like this.
A kisaeng receives customers night after night,
then repeatedly kills them after sleeping with them.
Now and then she sets out a bowl of clean water, prays in a white mourning dress, and then, when the scene changes, she appears in her shaman’s robe, swinging knives.
Murder and dance.
Images strangely fused into one.
The robes kept brushing past the camera, their collars flickering across the frame. It was strangely... a film that bewitched people.
“It’s appealing. There’s no color, but it feels like color keeps rising up anyway.”
“Kkrrr—finally, we’re speaking the same language!”
Senior Yoon blurted excitedly. “That’s exactly what people who love cult films recognize in Saekdong. They say you can feel the color.”
The instant I heard that, it happened.
Flaaash—
Suddenly, a book opened in my mind.
“!”
The book’s title was This Sublime Blasphemy, Cult.
It was one of the books I had looked at yesterday.
Flaaaaash—
The pages that had been turning without restraint stopped on page 92.
Shiiiiiik—
A fluorescent marker began drawing a line under one paragraph.
The essence of cult cinema is, after all, to draw out the audience’s fantasy. The fantasy they didn’t even know they possessed. At first the audience experiences it as shock, then as attraction, and then finally mistakes it for a taste that was always their own.
Shiiiiiiiiik—
But in reality, it is the opposite. Cult cinema merely materializes the taste the audience had unconsciously been dreaming of all along. If that taste, that fantasy, had not existed first, the audience could never have been captivated by it.
...I see.
Only after seeing Saekdong did I understand.
This book had correctly identified the essence of cult.
The fantasy Saekdong touched was, ultimately, “color.”
And that color was likely the fantasy dreamed of by audiences in the black-and-white era.
A color film they had never experienced.
Saekdong let people experience color through black-and-white film.
And one more reason this film was excellent.
Even now, both Senior Yoon and I were feeling color in the film.
That meant this film still worked, still, in a cult sense.
...I think I found it.
The material for the piece to put in the editorial criticism column.
There was only one thing bothering me.
Gyeongseong Geul was, after all, a literary quarterly.
In any case, the rule was to publish criticism about “writing.”
In my case, I needed a screenplay.
But if even the geekish Senior Yoon couldn’t get one, there was no way I could.
...Ah, right!
I remembered.
The person who could get me the screenplay collection for Saekdong.
The next day.
I called my father.
That grandly named senior committee member at the Korea Publishing and Film Culture Center.