A still from the film "Ode to My Father" / Courtesy of CJ Entertainment

If a house is on fire and a mother and three of her children are safely outside, should she risk her life to run in and save the remaining child? “Yes, of course!” you think. All life is sacred. Each individual precious. But the answer from a Korean mother in the 1950s might be "no." Because if she went inside and died, who would be left to feed the other children? Despite the grief of losing a husband and a child, she is expected to bury her trauma, endure the anguish, and continue dedicating her life, irrespective of her own feelings, to her children. That's what Korean mothers do.

That is one of the first lessons presented in the 2014 Korean movie “Ode to My Father” (weirdly enough, the actual Korean title translates to “International Market”). Moreover, that theme of sacrifice and familial duty is one that continues until the end. Ideas of morality, of good versus evil, or heroes and villains, are all absent. The core idea is duty. Not personal gain. Not self-interest. Duty. Duty to one's family. Duty to one's loved ones. Duty to one's country. No matter the consequences or the discomfort.

The individual, in a psychological sense as we know it today, had not yet been born then. It only arrived later with the implementation of neoliberalism throughout society and the consequent atomizing of people into groups of one.

Eldest children

We experience this necessity of duty through both women and men. The protagonist of “Ode to My Father,” Yoon Deok-soo, is a Korean man born and raised in North Korea but then evacuated to the South following the Chinese invasion during the Korean civil war in early 1951. Losing his father and younger sister along the way, at a tender age he becomes the “gajang” – the one responsible for supporting the family no matter what challenges may come. This heady task, generally placed on the eldest son, is a burden understood by many in East Asia. Even young people today speak of such pressures through the terms ‘K-jangnyeo' and ‘K-jangnam' (Korean first woman and Korean first man, respectively). Eldest daughters whisper wistfully of their desire to pursue arts, painting, or dancing, only to eventually be pressured into a nursing degree by their parents.

The newly appointed young “gajang” Yoon Deok-soo, in a sense, represents the Republic of Korea. Thrust into a geopolitical situation he does not necessarily understand nor care about, he sets about his task of seeing the family grow and prosper no matter the risks or hardships. We like to think of South Korea as a country steeped in thousands of years of tradition, but at the same time, its modern manifestation in the global world is very young. It was born in the late 1940s, and throughout the following decades it experienced immense growing pains, making mistakes, and struggling to find the right way forward. Yet like Deok-soo in the movie, it persisted. Only through that struggle do we see the country as it is today. Only because it endured such hardships in the past does it now have iced americanos, pop music, and streets that are safe and beautiful to walk upon.

As Deok-sook drinks next to a photo of his father, fighting to muster the courage to leave Korea and work in the dark, dank, dangerous mines of West Germany, he remembers his task is not to follow his own dreams (of being a ship captain) but to put his family first at every moment. “Arasseoyo! Arasseo,” he reluctantly sighs, sipping his soju. Above the photo, written in Korean, is a famous phrase attributed to Li Qingzhao, Aristotle, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”

Throughout the movie, the hardships suffered by Deok-soo and those around him are indeed bitter. Unimaginably so, sometimes. During an argument with his wife (through which we are reminded that Deok-soo is not a "good character" in the sense we would understand today), he says he has decided to leave to earn more money. That it is his fate. His wife, with tears in her eyes, remarks that although it is his life, she wonders when he might start living for himself instead of others. At that moment, perhaps when a psychological breakthrough might happen, the national anthem plays and all citizens, by law, stand, hand on hearts, and salute the flag.

These continued hardships are not just endured by Deok-soo, they are done so silently. Unflinchingly. Returning from Vietnam with a bullet in his leg and his wife brought to tears again by the sight of her wounded husband, he brushes off any sympathy or concern. “It's nothing,” he says.

Apology for authoritarianism

Some might argue that the movie promotes an excuse for authoritarianism. It concedes indivdual sovereignty to a greater cause. It places a person not at the top of the list of desirable conditions but in service to something else: their loved ones. Personal dreams are sacrificed so that others might enjoy comfort and pleasure.

And this is how families are created and how nations grow, not through the satiation of individual desire. The actual ideology underpinning the society is often irrelevant. The same principle applies in communist, capitalist, Muslim and atheist nations. If a sense of duty and sacrifice prevails, the group and community will thrive. If it is absent, the opposite will arise. Nihilism and hedonism will take root and people will play their fiddles in baths of milk as the world burns around them.

The movie presents a very positive and romanticized version of Korea's cultural and economic growth. It does not feature Jeon Tae-il. It whitewashes Korea's involvement in the Vietnam War. And ignores much of the oppression and murder carried out by military dictators over the decades. This is a movie made by Koreans, for Koreans, to paint Korean growth in a largely positive light. And it achieves its goal. For those who bemoan the absence of critical analysis in this movie, do they also ask why pop songs rarely feature minor chords or existential lyrics? Moreover, Korean cinema is replete with dark explorations of history and trauma. "Peppermint Candy," "Parasite," "Memories of Murder" and many many more all provide excellent and brutal portrayals of Korean society past and present. It's not as if Korean society forbids or bans such movies like many of its Asian neighbours. In fact, international audiences seem to like them so much that things like "Ode to My Father" become almost lost amidst the noise of dystopia and suffering.

The most important thing to remember is that this movie is not the final word in the conversation about Korea's growth. It is the start of a discussion. Many of my students know absolutely nothing about the Vietnam War, let alone Korea's participation in it. We can then move to Viet Thanh Nguyen's excellent book “Nothing Ever Dies.” We can explore how just like the Korean War helped make Japan rich, so did the Vietnam War help Korea become rich. War is like that. Undoubtedly, there are many complex and inter-related reasons for Korea's success, including American financial and military support, the exploitation of domestic workers, (often young women), the relationship between the government and big business, Korean creativity, pragmatism and a never say die attitude. This last part is emphasized by the appearance of the Hyundai CEO in the movie in the early stages. Yet to achieve any of the success that would drive the country into the 21st century he says to a young Deok-soo, “There may be trials, but failure is not an option.” For both the young "gajang" and the country of South Korea, he is right.

The young and the old

When we look at young people today, it is easy to consider them selfish and disinterested. And some will immediately brush off this movie as over-the-top nonsense. Domestic members of the Democratic Party of Korea and cynical academics will say this movie is a vehicle for old Korean conservative patriotism, but it is clearly more than that. I have watched it four times over the past week with hundreds of students from all over the world. It actually moves young people from all walks of life. A young female Chinese student said it reminded her of her grandmother eating grass to survive. The tall Australian man said it spoke to him about his own family and their struggles. Everyone cried. Everyone, no matter where they were from, felt that this movie was speaking to them. Somehow. This decade-old Korean movie was telling them about their own family and their own country's history.

And hopefully it also breeds some empathy for the elderly. When conversations in modern Korean society around gender, politics and modernization occur, we are very quickly and easily presented with dismissive remarks about the elderly members of society. “Just wait. Everything will be better when the old people die and get out of the way” is something I have heard suggested more than once. But the old people were children once, too. Their values, their ideas, and their lifestyle are all the result of the culture that created them. In the movie Deok-soo is not necessarily a good person (in the modern sense). He is misunderstood by his family and largely derided by them. But through the movie, through seeing his history, his past, his suffering, and his duty, we learn to understand him a bit more, even if we don't necessarily agree with him. We cry when he cries.

And that is the beauty of this movie. It provides people with a genuinely moving aesthetic experience that might help them see the elderly people around them in a different light. It reminds them of the importance of history. And it tells them that sometimes, some people, choose duty over individual desire. And that is a good thing.

David A. Tizzard has a doctorate in Korean Studies and lectures at Seoul Women's University and Hanyang University. He is a social-cultural commentator and musician who has lived in Korea for nearly two decades. He is also the host of the "Korea Deconstructed" podcast, which can be found online. He can be reached at datizzard@swu.ac.kr.