Hello.
When I hear the word "Italy,"
images fill my head.
I see the domed cathedral in Florence,
or the canals of Venice.
However, when I hear the word "Slovenia,"
When I hear the word "Slovenia,"
I see no such images.
There are some things that I know about Slovenia.
I know that it was the first of the former Yugoslav republics to join the EU.
I'm told it's a great place to vacation,
but I don't see Slovenia in my head.
You might say that for most people, there are two kinds of countries:
those that you can see in your head, and those that you can't.
Before I came to Seoul in 1997 to live and to teach,
Korea was for me a country of the second type.
Again, there were things that I knew about Korea.
I knew about the political situation facing North and South Korea.
I knew about the Korean War.
More than anything else, I knew about Korea through Korean friends
I'd made in the university and graduate school.
They'd told me many stories, but still, I was missing the images.
There was one country in Asia for which I had fresh, vibrant images,
and this was Hong Kong.
Mostly this was because I was a fan of Hong Kong movies,
such as Wong Kar-Wai's "Chungking Express."
These were highly-stylized images,
and I realized they may have very little relation
to the actual Hong Kong,
but they aroused my curiosity.
I was curious to know how great was the gap
between these images and the real Hong Kong.
Partly, it was this curiosity that led me to choose Hong Kong
as my first destination after arriving in Asia.
I believe in the power and influence of images.
Not that images alone can lead to greater understanding,
but they can ignite one's curiosity and charge one's imagination.
Images can make you feel closer to a place
even if you've never actually been there.
And not to slide photography,
but films provide
some of the most immediate and memorable images of a place.
Let me step back for a moment,
and tell you a bit about my own experience.
I came to Korea in 1997 to teach English,
intending to spend two years before moving on to Eastern Europe.
As you can see, I'm still here.
(Laughter)
As a film fan, the first thing that impressed me
about Korea's films culture
was a trip to the second Busan International Film Festival.
I was thrilled by the packed theaters and the enthusiasm of the crowds.
On screen, it was the movie "Christmas in August"
that first captured my imagination.
This film was not stylized like "Chungking Express,"
but the images in this film were unforgettable.
Set in an ordinary town,
about two ordinary people who almost fall in love
this film brings out the beauty in everyday life:
driving a scooter, developing photos, eating watermelon,
or teaching your father how to use the remote control.
All of these ordinary scenes were given added poignancy
by the elegance of the film making,
and our knowledge
that one of the two leads is sick and may not live much longer.
Let's take a look at one scene from this film.
It's one of the most ordinary scenes in the film,
they're simply eating ice cream,
but for me, it's remained one of the most memorable.
(Video starts) (Music)
(Korean) Da-rim: Sir! Jung-won: Oh!
DR: Where are you going?
JW: I have to take some pictures.
DR: Oh my, so what can I do? This is terribly urgent!
What can I do?
(Video ends)
Darcy Paquet: Watching movies like "Christmas in August" in the late 1990s
made me want to learn more about Korean cinema.
However, when I went online to search for more information,
there is almost no information in English.
This inspired me to start my own website on Korean cinema,
even though I'd never studied film formally,
and I didn't really have the qualifications to do so.
Koreanfilm.org was launched in April 1999.
Although I didn't expect immediate success with the site,
soon I began to hear from people all around the world
who were discovering Korean cinema.
A virtual community started to build up around my website.
For me, personally, the site also led to a new career.
First, working as a journalist at film trade magazine Screen International,
and later working as a festival consultant, columnist, and teacher.
In 2003, I did an experiment.
On my discussion board, I asked the question,
"Which Korean films have given you
the most vivid and enduring images of Korea?"
At this point, most of the people who visited my site had never been to Korea.
They watched Korean films through DVDs or at foreign film festivals,
so I was curious what kind of film would leave them
with the strongest impression.
The films that they chose were not idealized or exotic portrayals of Korea.
They were films like Park Heung-sik's "I Wish I Had a Wife,"
Hur Jin-ho's "One Fine Spring Day,"
or Bong Joon-ho's "Memories of Murder."
The film that they chose, above all else,
was "Take Care of My Cat" by Jeong Jae-eun.
I'd also been deeply impressed by this film.
The film is a thoughtful, realistic portrait
of five young women from Incheon,
whose friendship comes under strain
in the year after they graduate from high school.
The characters are vivid and engaging,
and the director makes us feel their experiences.
The setting, too, is also memorable.
One of the visitors to my site, who lived in Boston,
wrote on my discussion board,
"I'd never thought I should go to Korea before watching 'Take Care of My Cat, '
but now I want to go.
Pretty scenery is just not as powerful for me
as Jeong Jae-eun's urban landscapes."
Let's take a look at how the director presents
the urban landscapes of Incheon and Seoul.
(Video starts) (Korean) Bi-ryu: Taehee must be making a move on them.
Hae-joo: Huh, with that face?
(Music)
(Video ends)
DP: Over the last 15 years, Korean cinema has provided a wide spectrum
of indelible images to viewers around the world.
We've seen sassy girls,
"Oldboy,"
monsters,
ghosts,
soldiers,
clowns,
vagrants,
and artists.
Many people around the world know Korea through these images.
While maintaining my website,
I received a lot of e-mails from people around the world
who have just started to discover Korean cinema.
I've heard from adoptees living in other countries
who have grown up in towns where they're the only ethnic Koreans.
For them, these images from a faraway land
end up becoming an important part of their identity.
I've heard from people who knew nothing about Korea
before watching their first Korean film,
but who were eventually inspired to move here and to start a new life.
And I've received many less serious comments and questions as well.
Such as the reader who asked,
"What are all of these green bottles I always see on the table in Korean films?
(Laughter)
My talk today is a mixture of optimism and pessimism.
My optimism springs from the belief
that films and the images that they convey can be more influential than we realize.
In particular, I believe that when films cross cultures, good things can happen.
However, I become more pessimistic when confronted with the practical problem
of how to bring Korean films into contact with more people around the world.
Let me quote one of my favorite directors from Hollywood,
"A lot of people in the film industry are fatalists
who think a worthwhile film will always achieve its destiny,
and the films that aren't worthwhile won't,
that it's all sort of predetermined, etc.
And I don't think that's true at all."
There are some beliefs that we hold as a result of reflection,
and other beliefs that we hold casually,
without ever really seriously considering the reasoning behind them.
The idea that a good film will find a wide audience,
and that an undeserving film will not,
is an example of the second category.
Some people might think
that there is a sort of survival-of-the-fittest going on,
whereby good films overpower bad films and reach more viewers.
But it doesn't take much thought to realize that in this case,
the "fittest" are not the best films,
but the films with the most marketing and distribution power behind them.
Cinephiles are more likely to understand
that large distributors have a tight grip on the commercial film sector.
But they might be likely to subscribe to another myth
that the three major film festivals, Cannes, Venice, and Berlin
form a sort of alternate fair system to counteract the unfair, commercial one.
Personally, I can't believe this either.
Years of working in the film industry have convinced me
that the programers for these festivals can be just as close-minded
as the Hollywood studios.
It's just that they're focused on a different kind of film.
What was the most important Korean film of the past ten years?
You can make an argument for Bong Joon-ho's "Memories of Murder,"
but this film was casually passed over by the major film festivals
because at that time, the director was not famous enough.
The average person does not really understand
how the global film distribution system works,
but he or she usually assumes that it works in a beneficial way.
The danger of believing in the system is that you may sit back and simply wait
for the good films to come across your path,
and you will not go out and actively search for them.
To me, this is a tragedy.
My concern is that a broken system is preventing people
from encountering films that might really impact them.
How do you work outside the system?
Go on the Internet
and search for information about films from other countries.
Go to a film festival and watch a small film that you know nothing about.
Ask your foreign friends to recommend films.
And while you're at it, recommend some Korean films for them.
My closing wish today is quite simple, and it will not change the world,
but it might change your experience:
I hope that more people throw away their faith in the system
and begin to actively search out films from around the world.
Thank you for listening.
(Applause)