Jang Sun-Woo (1996): ‘I became a film-maker largely because of what happened in Kwangju, and I have always felt a need to deal with the massacre somehow. I couldn’t tackle the full political and historical background in this one movie, and so I chose to focus on the way that history affects the individual. In particular, the scars that were left on the psyche of one 15-year-old girl.’A Petal is the first mature cinematic reflection on what happened in Kwangju in 1980 and what it meant. It also sets a new benchmark for the serious treatment of sex and politics in Korean cinema. A young woman, nameless and mentally disturbed, wanders the countryside looking for her brother. She latches on to a down-and-out labourer and moves in with him. He abuses her, beats her and finally rapes her, but her refusal to leave slowly softens his behaviour. Meanwhile, through animated and live-action flashbacks, Jang shows us the origins of the girl’s trauma… Tony Rayns
