NYFF Review: The President's Last Bang

Imagine watching Dr. Strangelove without any knowledge of American politics or the Cold War. Or maybe a funny, assassination-tinged version of Nixon with no knowledge of the man, his era, or his country. Weird, right? You’d be totally lost without context or clues to help you get a grasp on the film. Well, despite a quick, press materials-aided history lesson, that’s exactly how I felt watching Im Sangsoo’s The President’s Last Bang last week at the New York Film Festival. The film tells the true story of the 1979 killing of South Korean president/dictator Park Chunghee (Song Jaeho) and two of his associates by his own intelligence chief, Kim Jaegyu (Baek Yoonshik). In director Im’s hands, though, the historical events take on a sardonic, absurdist edge, with the assassination stemming from nothing more than boredom and an accumulation of self-loathing and disgust.

After a day of catering to President Park’s whims and cleaning up his frequent indiscretions, Kim is assigned the task of arranging a party for the President, complete with food, liquor, and women. The party takes place at a KCIA (sort of a combination of the FBI and CIA, headed by Kim himself) safehouse, presumably because it is one of the few places where Park will be safe from the frequent attempts on his life.

During downtime before and during the party, Kim gripes to his assistants about the president’s demands, and his flagrantly dictatorial style of government. A recent violent crackdown on student protests increased discontent among the President’s closest advisers, and Kim seems to be struggling to contain his distaste for the regime. In addition to his disgust with President Park, Kim has also recently learned that he suffers from both chronic fatigue and a major liver ailment, both of which add to his feeling of profound malaise. Believing that he is decaying from the inside-out and deeply disillusioned by the man he works to protect, Kim distractedly stumbles upon the idea of assassination. There in the safehouse of his own organization, he announces his intention to kill the president. “Besides,” he says. “We’ve got nothing better to do.”

It’s that sort of a film - serious topics are constantly disarmed by humor, but the humor is pointed and harsh, often aimed at the absolute absurdity of the mechanics of government. When Kim’s (incredibly sloppy, poorly organized) attack takes place, the President’s bodyguard is unable to protect him because he doesn’t carry a gun. Later, soldiers trying to arrest Kim realize that the range of their walkie-talkies is limited to the Presidential Palace; they are unable to contact those who guard the gate outside. And no one recognizes anyone in government without their uniforms - the head of the army is repeatedly stopped by security guards who have no idea who he is and refuse to let him into his own office. It is during these Strangelove-esque moments of delightful nonsense that The President’s Last Bang is most accessible. One needs no knowledge whatsoever about South Korean history to recognize one’s own government in the mechanical bumbling of the figures on screen, and to appreciate Im’s very modern perspective.

The accumulated madness of The President’s Last Bang eventually gives the film an almost surreal air, an atmosphere which is greatly enhanced Kim Woohyung’s graceful cinematography. Though much of the film is shot very conventionally, his camera periodically takes flight, rising above the outrageous events below and slowly touring their surroundings, whether it’s the KCIA safehouse, the presidential palace, or the silent streets of Seoul. When this happens, the key figures in the film’s very real drama are reduced somehow to insignificant actors on an isolated set, almost tragic in their absurdity. When Kim bungles his initial assassination and only wounds his intended victims, in a scene that is both frightening and comical he runs the safe house grounds screaming desperately for a gun. When the camera lifts from his face, however, and rises into the sky, he is transformed into a pathetic figure, isolated on a too-green (astroturf?) lawn, impotent in his tiny rage. Over and over again, the camera’s elevated perspective emphasizes that isolation, both of Kim and of President Park’s government. The streets, always, are empty apart from the cars of the players in this power struggle, and the apparent absence of a populace to govern makes the violence and conflict that much more outrageous.

Despite all of this, though, I was always watching The President’s Last Bang from the outside. Because of my horrible education about Korean politics, I lacked the fundamental understanding that was necessary to feel comfortable without the world of the film, which inevitably left me somewhat adrift for its entirety. Even without that connection I could see that Im is a thrillingly confident and talented director, but I can’t imagine that even his audacious ability will make The President’s Last Bang a success in the US. Curious film lovers will go, of course, but the sad fact is that we simply don’t have the tools we need to appreciate the full complexity of Im’s work.

[Hoping to prove that my misgivings about the American ability to fully understand it are foolish and unfounded, Kino International is distributing The President’s Last Bang domestically. It opens in New York on October 14, and Los Angeles on October 18.]