The Pregnant Tree and the Goblin

When the American base in Uijungbu, Korea is going to be torn down, Park Insun, a ‘comfort woman’ who has lived in the adjacent shanty town for 40 years, feels distressed. On a cold winter’s day she discovers that a former colleague has died and she attends the silent funeral. Then messengers from the afterlife appear in search of wandering spirits who need to go to the realm of the dead. To prevent being extinguished, Insun decides to make her own ‘true’ story.

The filmmakers have already highlighted the issue of American military bases and the accompanying prostitution in moving documentaries such as Tour of Duty (2013). This new film approaches a comfort woman’s traumatised life more as fiction, adding supernatural fantasy elements allowing Park Insun to steer her unbearably tragic fate in the sublime direction of her choice: an act of resistance against her exploitation, against a clock that cannot be turned back, but also against victimhood.

Trailer

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