Chan-Kyong Park

Flying, 2005

Park Chan-Kyong explores in his work the break between the Korean past and its present. His film Flying (2005) investigates into the remnants of the Cold War—particularly as an unresolved tragedy. The film consists of documentary footage of the Seoul-Pyongyang flight carrying then South Korean president Kim Dae Jung to a joint summit with then North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, in 2000. Park casts the retrospective eye of a former romanticist onto what is now considered the zenith of inter-Korean reconciliation, by adding slow-motion effects and the angst-ridden, ominous soundtrack ‘Double Concerto’ (1977) by the Korean-born composer Yun Isang, which is based on a Korean fairytale. A harp playing princess falls in love with a shawm playing cowherd. The king, angered at is daughter’s inappropriate choice, banished both as stars to the opposite ends of the Mily Way. As an act of mercy, however, they may meet once a year, on July 7, in the middle of the Milky Way.