In this blog post, I’ll explore everything from why I chose ‘Nonfiction Diary’ to the historical context surrounding the Jijonpa serial murder case and the Seongsu Bridge and Sampoong Department Store collapses, as well as the film’s format and direction, and my personal thoughts on the social issues it raises.
Reasons for Choosing This Film
I enjoy documentaries that address social issues in an investigative style. While there are many documentaries from abroad, I wanted to analyze “Nonfiction Diary,” a film that sparked significant controversy in South Korea. This film focuses on heinous serial killers. It delves into the case of the “Jijonpa” gang as portrayed by the media, exploring why they committed these murders; to fully grasp the film, one must understand the historical context of South Korea in the 1990s.
Since this documentary is based on events that occurred when I was very young, it took me some time to fully comprehend the case. However, I chose this film because the crimes were committed by people around the same age as my uncle—who I spent time with as a child—and since my uncle was also deeply involved in the farmers’ movement and frequently found himself in and out of police stations, I thought that watching this film while tracing the historical context might help me understand my uncle’s behavior from my childhood.
The historical backdrop of this film bears a resemblance to the present day, 20 years later. The film features the Jijonpa gang, which brutally massacred the “Orange Tribe” in Gangnam, as well as Yoo Byung-eun, the prime suspect in the recent Sewol Ferry disaster—a man now portrayed as the greatest murderer of our time. Yet, more significant political events are often quietly buried because of these incidents.
While watching the film, I found myself thinking that perhaps the South Korean government needs a “demon of the era”—someone to cover up its own mistakes—rather than creating a “hero of the era” for its people.
The historical atmosphere depicted in ‘Nonfiction Diary’ was a time when the military regime had collapsed, the administration of President Kim Young-sam—seen as the beginning of true democracy—had taken office, and the public was enjoying a wealth of cultural benefits. However, unlike the rapidly growing cities, life in rural areas remained unchanged even after the change in government. I chose this film because I grew up experiencing firsthand the turbulent 1990s in rural areas, and I believed that by trying to understand the feelings of the characters—who are roughly the same age as the uncles of the actual protagonists of this work, the members of the Jijonpa—I could analyze the film from a perspective different from that of other viewers.
Summary of the Film’s Sequences
The documentary ‘Nonfiction Diary’ reexamines the era through the lens of the so-called “Jijonpa Serial Murders” in September 1994, the “Seongsu Bridge Collapse” in October 1994, and the “Sampung Department Store Collapse” in June 1995. Through Director Jeong Yun-seok’s five years of tenacious archival research and candid interviews with key figures—including Go Byeong-cheon, former head of the Violent Crimes Unit at Seocho Police Station; Kim Hyeong-tae, a human rights lawyer; Jeong Hyeong-bok, a former correctional officer at Seoul Detention Center; Jo Seong-ae, a former counseling nun at Seoul Detention Center; and Han Wan-sang, former Deputy Prime Minister—the film vividly recreates this period of history.
Film Format and Direction
The film employs the Direct Cinema style, with the director boldly utilizing archival footage and interviews—which adopt an observational approach—to tell the story, while employing editing that reinforces the events depicted in the archival footage.
The director demonstrates a strong sense of artistic direction not only in the editing but also in the sound design within the film. By preserving the original on-site audio from the archival footage and leaving the noise inherent in old footage intact, the director enhances the sense of realism, further increasing the film’s immersive power.
A Subjective Approach to the Theme and Reflections on the Era
On the surface, ‘Nonfiction Diary’ looks back on tragic true stories from the past and examines the social context that made those events inevitable, as well as the society that followed, from various perspectives—including religion, politics, and culture.
The perspective that these events should be interpreted within their historical context rather than viewed in isolation is both objective and incisive. The director reveals, through subtext, issues such as the fairness of legal application, controversies surrounding the death penalty, debates on the theory of innate goodness, and problems that persist to this day.
To briefly discuss the historical context of the film, 1994 and 1995 were during the presidency of Kim Young-sam, the 14th President, whose administration was self-styled as a “civilian government.” However, history remembers this period not as the beginning of a civilian government but as the final regime of military dictatorship. This is because President Kim Young-sam was the leader of the Democratic Liberal Party, which had emerged alongside the military dictatorship, and he did not actively take measures to promote civilian governance. On the contrary, consumed by a lust for power, he granted absolution to the masterminds who massacred innocent Gwangju citizens and trampled on democracy in this country, and led the people into an unprecedented crisis: the IMF bailout. Yet these historical contexts are treated as trivial, omitted, or even distorted.
The film fills this void with sensational and gossip-driven material designed to grab the audience’s attention. It suggests that the murderers are fundamentally good people based on changes in their behavior after their arrest, thereby promoting the theory of innate goodness; it stirs debate over the abolition of the death penalty by highlighting how executions were carried out with unprecedented speed and on a massive scale; and it even includes the bizarre reflections of prison guards who witnessed the executions. Furthermore, the film devotes a significant amount of time to showing the suspects attending religious services in prison and featuring interviews with religious figures involved in their conversion process; it even goes so far as to detail the specific religions they chose. This leads one to wonder whether this was more meaningful than conducting an in-depth analysis of the social problems of the time through the collapses of the Seongsu Bridge and the Sampoong Department Store.
There also appears to be an intention to subtly disparage the specific region where the Jijonpa incident occurred. The documentary persistently mentions the area where the incident occurred and even interprets the meanings behind its place names. Scenes of interviewing simple, country folk who feel ashamed after the incident should have been limited to only what was strictly necessary, yet they are inserted unfiltered and in excess. It even goes so far as to implicitly suggest—by going back in time to the Korean War—that the land was originally barren.
However, both before and after the Jijonpa incident, I have never heard of such a horrific incident occurring in that region. Furthermore, even those who have committed far more heinous crimes in the eyes of history have only been held personally accountable; no one has ever condemned the people of that region or the region itself as a whole. This leads me to suspect that the director might be from Gyeongsang Province.
