본문 바로가기
  • Home
Basic Search

Spatial Transformation in the Kim, Jingyu* Adaptation of “The Myth of Ssaritgol” and the Figuration of a ‘Failed Myth’

  • Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University
  • 2026, 83(2), pp.331~359
  • Publisher : Institute of Humanities, Seoul National University
  • Research Area : Humanities > Other Humanities
  • Received : April 12, 2026
  • Accepted : May 11, 2026
  • Published : May 31, 2026

JINGYU KIM 1

1가천대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study aims to analyze how the spatial transformation that occurs in the adaptation of Sunwoo Hwi’s novella “The Myth of Ssaritgol” into Lee Man-hee’s film of the same title alters the thematic consciousness and narrative structure of the two works, and to elucidate the significance of that transformation. The novella constructs the myth of an ideal community impervious to ideology and violence, grounded in the geographical closure of a valley surrounded by steep mountains on all sides. This primordial closure is the essential condition enabling the myth of ‘no one dying’ even amid the Korean War. In the film, however, the relocation of the setting to a coastal village on the West Sea fundamentally transforms the nature of the space. The closure foregrounded in the film is not topographical but situational — produced by military occupation — and this transformation is the structural reason why the novella’s myth is inevitably destroyed in the film. The salt farm, the central setting of the film, carries a dual meaning. Drawing on the historical context of communal salt farms established through refugee resettlement projects in the 1950s and 1960s and the cooperative movements shared by both Koreas, the salt farm in the film briefly opens a possibility of communication that transcends ideological antagonism. The scene in which the North Korean officer Pyo Mun-won admires the collective operation of the salt farm represents a moment in which ideological hostility is temporarily dissolved and shared identity is confirmed. Yet this possibility of communication collapses in the face of the extreme conflict generated by war and the deception and violence driven by Pyo’s personal hatred and desire for revenge. The mise-en-scène — in which the salt farm, previously represented as an open space, is visually divided by the physical barrier of an embankment and transformed into an enclosed battlefield — cinematically renders this tragic reversal. Where existing scholarship has focused on the film’s reflection of reality within the binary of ‘unrealistic novella’ versus ‘realistic film,’ this study demonstrates that the core of that realism lies in the spatial transformation itself, and concretely establishes that the salt farm is historically grounded in the communal salt farms that actually existed. Furthermore, through a comparison of the production registration documents and the censorship records, this study confirms that the salt farm — absent from the original production plan — became the central setting of the completed film, and that the production was revised in a direction that foregrounded the tragedy of war.

Statistics

  • 3 Viewed
  • 0 Downloaded

Tools

Issue List

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2024 are currently being built.

Basic Search Advanced Search