Vicars of Horror: the Children of the former sex slaves of the Japanese Army in Kim Dong Won and Byun Young Joo films

Abstract

Born in the shadow of the Asian Holocaust, the children of the former sexual slaves of the Japanese Army testify in the South Korean Independent Documentary Films. Children blood, adopted children, children of horror, children of hope. They are, as Young (2000) pointed out, vicar of the past. They are the direct heirs of the trauma and pain of their mother says. The murmuring (1995) and My Own Breathing (1999) directed by Byun Young Joo, and Kim Dong Won ́s 63 years on (2008) have included short stories of the children of some of the former comfort women. They do not have a central and dominant place in their respective narratives, but they open a new discussion: the transition of historical traumas. What are the children positions regarding to their mother ́s suffering? What are the main features of the mother-child relationship? From the theoretical perspective of posmemoria suggested by Hirsch (1997) and Chu (2008) ́s posmemoria Han, this articles attempts to answer the research questions. The central thesis of this work proposes that the testimonies of the former comfort women ́s children represented in the selected films goes beyond the national question of han. They place the issue in the mother ́s world (filial piety).