Disaster movie ‘Pandora’ rings true
The film “Pandora,” the first local film dealing with a nuclear disaster here, is striking in that it bears much on what is happening in Korea now.
The nation, which was perceived by many as earthquake-free, was hit by a strong tremor in September. The nation is plagued with a scandal involving President Park Geun-hye, her confident Choi Soon-sil and their cronies who meddled in state affairs.
The seven hours Park went missing during the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster and what she did during that critical time still remain a mystery, prompting much speculation from the media.
The movie, starring veteran actors Kim Myung-min, Jung Jin-young and Kim Nam-gil, features a disaster at a nuclear power plant following a massive earthquake.
Although the film was first shot four years ago, the large-scale film, directed by Park Jung-woo, is a tale about something that could happen if an earthquake strikes nuclear power plants in the southern part of the country.
In the movie, there is no contingency plan in place. The president is so incompetent that he has no idea of how to respond to the disaster in the face of the mighty prime minister. The No. 2 man is the real power and controls the Cabinet. The prime minister and Cabinet members strive to cover up the incident and worry more about financial loss than the lives of civilians.
The police are self-serving, too. They care more for their own safety and neglect the safety of the public, putting the lives of the people who are locked into the disaster on the line.
“Pandora” is not an easy movie to watch. It lends a painful patina of the real-world Sewol tragedy that claimed the lives of over 300 people in 2014.
The selfish captain and his crew on the ferry boarded a rescue boat, while telling passengers to stay calm. By doing so, they wasted time for the passengers to be evacuated from the ship. President Park missed the golden time to rescue the hundreds of passengers who lost their lives.
“Pandora” reminds the audience of the difficult ordeal the nation endured over two years ago. Through the voices of people portrayed in the film, the director doesn’t shy away from criticizing the government. The prime minister says “We cannot risk the whole nation in order to save just a few lives.” A plant worker says, “Those who are in power make the mess and now we have to clean it up.”
Structurally, “Pandora” is not innovative. It shares many parts with other local disaster movies such as “Tidal Wave” (2009) and “Train to Busan,” where ordinary people become heroes who risk their lives to save their fellow citizens.
However, this film wisely mixes elements of computerized graphics and human stories, leading the viewers to feel that the 136-minute running time isn’t that long.
The tragedy culminates at the moment when the president, played by actor Kim Myung-min, confesses in a televised message “The nation has no means to save itself from the disaster,” and asks for volunteers, who are courageous enough to risk their lives to repair the cracks in a nuclear reactor, to help.
In contrast, power plant worker Jae-hyuk, played by Kim Nam-gil, is an ordinary citizen who fears death but gathers up the courage to save his own family.
The scenes, including the one where Jae-hyuk is crying and saying, “I didn’t do anything wrong to suffer this kind of accident,” when he speaks to his mother over the phone, are heart-breaking.
At the end, the film reminds the audience that Korea is first country in the world to have its population living near nuclear power plants but even at that, the nation is heading in the wrong direction because it is going against the global trend in nuclear energy.
Other nations are closing down nuclear power plants but Korea plans to build more.
The movie is meaningful in that it raises alarms in describing the danger of disaster in great detail. It also shows that even those who live within 100 kilometers from the disaster-hit area will be affected once a nuclear disaster strikes.
As in the Greek tale of Pandora, the director opens Pandora’s box and releases death and many other evils to the world. Except there is hope that lies at the bottom — in this case Jae-hyuk’s sacrifice.
After the film, the questions and bitterness linger why an ordinary person such as Jae-hyuk should sacrifice himself for the privileged 1 percent of the people who started all of this to begin with.
“Pandora” will be in local theaters Wednesday.
Those who are in power make the mess, and now we have to clean it up.