Flying
비행

  • Release Date

    2005

  • Runtime

    13 mins

Flying (2005) is an uncanny document of the historic 2000 summit between South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean Leader Kim Jong-il, the first time leaders of both countries had met since the Korean war. The film utilises mainly unused footage, shot by news channels, of the flight between Seoul and Pyongyang, and the subsequent welcoming ceremony, set to the first part of Yun Yi-sang’s 1977 Double Concerto. Yun was an acclaimed composer whose work sought to apply East Asian aesthetics to Western classical structures, who visited North Korea several times for his research, and was eventually accused of pro-North Korean activities and being close to Leader Kim Il-song. As a result, his music was banned in South Korea until shortly before his death in 1995. Park layers the film using these sources – the news footage, Yun’s music, and his own text – resulting in a work that resists any attempts to contain the complexities of the summit, and instead proposes something more ambiguous and unsettling.