The visual chronopolitics of ‘comfort women’ narrative films in South Korea

ABSTRACT The military ‘comfort women’ films go beyond homogeneous groups, but instead speak to an inherently singular human existence to construct affects that lend themselves in creating a public memory that is both collective and political. In examining the chronopolitics of South Korean ‘comfort women’ films, the essay looks beyond the notion of linear and homogeneous history and underscores the power of imagination in reviving historical memories from the present perspective. Especially, it pays attention to the contemporary narrative films such as Spirits’ Homecoming (2016), I Can Speak (2017), and Herstory (2018) and their distinctive strategies of melodramatic sensibility and imagination.