You remember that scene in Hamlet, right? After having seen a ghostly figure stalking
about the castle parapets Hamlet tells Horatio that:
Horatio, like his good friend Hamlet was a student at the University of Wittenberg , a noble bastion of Protestant
humanism. They would have been students
of a classical education, studying ethics, logic, natural science, and of
course philosophy and theology. This
sort of rational, logical, scientific study left little time for superstitions
and ghost stories.
I’ve had no personal experience with a ghost, much to my
continued disappointment. I have never
heard the shriek of a banshee, been thrown across the room by a poltergeist, witnessed
an apparition from the etheric plane, or found ectoplasmic residue from a
spiritual encounter. But I’ve always
believed in ghost stories, or at least I’ve wanted to believe in them. Like
agent Mulder and his UFO’s, I’ve wanted to believe in the strange and
inexplicable all my life.
The world is a strange place but most of the time it makes
sense, most of the time the world behaves in an orderly and predicable
manner. Scientists would have a
difficult time if their experiments produced different results every time
without a rational explanation. We live, as we do today, with electricity and
internal combustion engines and chemical pharmaceuticals and etc… because the
world behaves in a rational and orderly and predictable way. Usually…
But we’ve all heard those stories. A friend of a friend
heard a voice speaking to him in that empty house or so-and-so’s great
grandmother got off the Titanic at the last moment because she felt a presence
warning her not to go. We’ve heard
stories about haunted houses and strange happenings and we wonder. Maybe you’re like me and you’ve wanted to
believe that they might be true. Maybe
you hoped, as I did, that some of those stories might be true.
But at some point people tried to tell me, for my own good –
of course, that ghosts and vampires and other assorted supernatural lore are
not appropriate material for a Christian young man to study. Ghosts, I was told, were nothing more than
demonic spirits masquerading as departed spirits in order to lure people into
the occult.[ii] There was no room for a wondrous strange
world. And there was no room in my
instructors’ philosophy for ghosts.[iii]
And, for a time, I believed them. I tried to put away those childish things, but
I began to wonder. Stories and legends
about wraiths and ghosts are numerous and varied but it seemed to me that most of the stories
about ghosts involved departed spirits lingering in this physical world for one
of two things (and sometimes both). Either
spooks and haints haunted a place seeking justice for a wrong committed upon
them while they were alive or they haunted a place were a great and terrible
tragedy occurred. And if ghosts
are nothing more than demons trying to lure us into a diabolical snare – why do
they so often seem to be trying to find justice in this world – if not in the
next?
But, as I said, I’ve never had a personal encounter with a
ghost, demonic or otherwise. To this
point it’s all been stories from a friend of a friend of a friend or something
I’ve read,
or a movie that I’ve watched. And since I’m watching a horror movie every night this month[iv] it was inevitable that I would eventually watch the movie version of a ghost story. Arang (2006) is my first ghost story this month.
or a movie that I’ve watched. And since I’m watching a horror movie every night this month[iv] it was inevitable that I would eventually watch the movie version of a ghost story. Arang (2006) is my first ghost story this month.
It’s also my first Korean horror film. And as such there was
a lot in the film that was difficult for me to understand. Filmmakers (and storytellers in general) make
certain assumptions about what their audience knows or doesn’t know. If I tell you a story about my family loading
up the station-wagon for a summer vacation visit to my great-grand parent’s
home in Kansas I probably don’t have to explain to you the idea of summer
vacations, Kansas, or station-wagons (unless you’re under twenty years old and
you’ve only ever known the station-wagon’s marginally cooler cousin, the
mini-van…). These are things that we
understand together. But if someone in
my audience was unfamiliar with these things, the story would be more difficult
for them to understand. It wouldn’t be
impossible; visiting family and being cooped up with others for long and
difficult travel are probably universal enough that anyone anywhere can
understand them even with cultural differences but it might be difficult.
And that’s how watching Arang was for me.
It probably would have helped if I’d have known the legend
of Arang before watching the movie. The
Legend of Arang is a fairly well known ghost story – at least in Korea – but I
had to look it up. Thank God for the
internets…
It is the story of Arang, the daughter of a city
magistrate. A servant in her father’s
house conspired with her wicked nanny to seize and rape Arang. But Arang
resisted and the servant stabbed her death and hid the body. Her father, thinking that she had either
eloped with a stranger or that she had been abducted, resigned his position in
shame and spent the rest of his life trying to find her. Newly appointed magistrates were visited by
the ghost of Arang, who pleaded with them to find her murderer. But the visit was so frightening that they
all died from fear. Soon no one was
willing to take the position. But at
last a bold and good man was appointed to the post and he promised Arang’s
ghost that he would seek out justice for her. He found the wicked servant,
arrested him and had him executed. And
after that Arang’s spirit ceased to haunt the town.
Maruyam Okyo's painting The Ghost of Oyuki |
It’s a pretty typical ghost story, and one that we’ve
probably heard before with a different name and with different details. So it’s not as if the story was completely
foreign to me.
But it’s the details that
differ. If you’ve seen the recent
American versions of Japanese[v]
horror films like The Ring (2002) (based on Ringu) or The Grudge
(2004) (based on Ju-On) you’ve seen a pretty typical example of a
Japanese ghost – the pale skin, white robe, and the long disheveled dark
hair. These are things that the Korean
audience of Arang would notice immediately.
But even with the cultural gap,
the story plays well. It is one part
ghost story and one part detective thriller.
After a series of bizarre deaths two police detectives, So-young – a
young but experienced woman with her own intense reasons for becoming a police
officer – and Hyung-gi, her new and naïve partner – realize that in order to
solve the mystery they’ll have to investigate a 10 year old crime.
To say more would be to give away the story and I don’t want to do that. I encourage you to watch the movie and to experience it for yourself.
The bible really says very little about ghosts. To insist with dogmatic certitude that they are nothing more than demonic lures goes beyond what the bible actually says and leaves us in world without the potential, at least, for the wondrous and strange things of this queer universe.
To say more would be to give away the story and I don’t want to do that. I encourage you to watch the movie and to experience it for yourself.
The bible really says very little about ghosts. To insist with dogmatic certitude that they are nothing more than demonic lures goes beyond what the bible actually says and leaves us in world without the potential, at least, for the wondrous and strange things of this queer universe.
[i] Hamlet
Act I Scene v
[ii] Citing 1 Timothy 4:1 " [they] come to
deceive people and draw them away from God and into bondage."
[iii] They wouldn’t have agreed Hamlet or with the
British geneticist / evolutionary biologist J.B.S. Haldane who said, “...it is
my suspicion that not only is the universe queerer than we suppose, it is queerer
than we can suppose.”
[v] Yes. I am aware the Japanese and Korean
cultures are different. But they are
more similar than American and Korean…
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