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[HanCinema's Film Review] "No Name Stars"

Following Chun Doo-hwan's ascent to power, brutality by government forces was common in order to assure that no one challenged the new political order. In Gwangju, on May 18th, 1980, this brutality reached a tipping point. Attacks against people who weren't even related to ongoing political protests enraged enough common citizens that they took to the streets and defied the government with show of force. "No Name Stars" is the story of those people- what they were doing then, and what they are doing today.

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By "today" I mean the late 2000's, which is when this documentary was filmed. "No Name Stars" is part of the first wave of major political documentaries that followed the revival of conservative political forces in South Korean public life. Pursuant to that, "No Name Stars" makes much discussion of a plan to revitalize one of Gwangju's city centers to make it more attractive to foreign investment. Coincidentally, such a plan would also render one of the iconic locations in photographs of the Gwangju Democratization Movement unrecognizable.

The general paranoia the interviewees in "No Name Stars" have toward government action is pretty understandable. They've lived through some pretty unconscionable efforts to straight up erase history. Family members died because of what happened in Gwangju. Frequent visits are made to the graves. The imagery of seeing old footage of Gwangju during the movement and seeing the decidedly emptier streets of the city today makes for a powerful contrast.

It also calls attention to how Gwangju hasn't really changed all that much in the last thirty years, which gives "No Name Stars" value beyond just the political history lesson. Most of South Korea still looks, for the most part, like Gwangju. Not everyone has or wants the glitz and glamor of a big city. When this much is factored in, it's easy to see why the citizens of Gwangju reacted with such hostility to the government's explicit repression of basic free speech rights. If they didn't care about Gwangju before, why now?

This basic incredulity seeps through the simpler discussions of livelioods most of the interviewees get into. It's uncanny how little their lives have really changed in all that time. Looking at the backdrop, they could just as easily be talking about what they were doing last week as they were thirty years ago. Then they get to the part of the story where the Democratization Movement happens, which side they picked and why and then, inevitably, there's a eulogy for a fallen family member coupled with a remonstrance to never forget.

It's a lot less corny than it sounds because again, as an older, first wave documentary, a lot of the norms for the current political documentary genre hadn't been set yet. There aren't subtitles to help with the local dialect, or even to identify explicitly who most of the interviewees are. Part of this is by design- after all, these are the "No Name Stars" who made the Gwangju Democratization Movement possible, if only through logistical and moral support of that doomed, noble endeavor.

Review by William Schwartz

"No Name Stars" is directed by Kim Tae-il.

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