Silenced | Teen Ink

Silenced

February 21, 2021
By ZhuyuxinCindy SILVER, Hangzhou, Other
ZhuyuxinCindy SILVER, Hangzhou, Other
9 articles 0 photos 0 comments

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"Silenced" is a film that changed the country. The 2011 Korean movie "Silenced" is a movie based on a real case of child sexual abuse. After the film was released, it caused great repercussions, and the South Korean government even enacted a law based on this movie to prevent child sexual abuse. In 2011, a truth that made the whole of Korea shocked was revealed. Korean filmmakers used their fantastic narrative ability and excellent depiction of humanity to depict a human hell for the audiences.

The film is based on the incident of child sexual abuse in a school for deaf-mute persons in Gwangju between 2000 and 2004. It describes the cases that the teachers did sexual abuse on students. The male protagonist, Jiang Inho, is an art teacher from Seoul. He accidentally witnessed this tragedy. An earth-shattering secret is revealed, and the truth shocks the whole South Korea.

Gray, black, and yellow are the main three colors in "Silenced". The three colors have different meanings. The director uses different colors to imply the theme of the movie. "Fog" in Dickens' novels implies a twisted human nature, and is the evil behind the light. At the beginning of the film, the hazy gray outlines a lifeless city image. This dark gray covers the whole movie with a mystery, implying that the city hides a huge crime. Black is synonymous with "darkness and terror". The director uses a heavy color to depict a sense of despair, rendering an atmosphere of terror and sadness. Besides this, the extensive use of black in the movie symbolizes the abyss, indicating that this school is like an abyss swallowing innocence and humanity. In addition, there are two scenes in that use yellow extensively. The first is to show the child's desperate cry after being sexually assaulted. This kind of yellow is dark yellow, representing "repression", and it deeply expresses the child's helplessness. Another kind of yellow is used to express warm and beautiful scenes. As the sun sets, the hero takes the children along the beach. That is the first time the child feels love. The yellow here tends to be warmer, and borrows the "warm and beautiful" image of the sun to present a warm and touching scene.

"Silenced" is adapted from the novel by the Korean writer Kong Ji Young. The novel is based on a real incident that occurred in Gwangju Renhe Special Education School for the Deaf and Mute in South Korea in 2005. It tells the story of the school’s art teacher discovering that the school’s principal and teacher sexually abused disabled children at school. After the book was released, the novel was immediately on the 2009 book best-seller list and attracted much attention.

In addition, "Silenced" was selected as one of the top ten legal news events in Korea in 2011 for its unparalleled influence. However, the impact of this movie on Korean society and people is much more than that. This movie exposes the infringement of the human rights of the disabled in social welfare institutions. Non-governmental organizations such as Korean disabled people's groups have unanimously called for the revision of the Social Welfare Business Law. On December 29, 2011, the Korean National Assembly passed the "Social Welfare Law Amendment". The revised Social Welfare Law stipulates that those who violate the "Special Sexual Violence Law" and the "Child and Adolescent Sexual Protection Law" must not engage in related businesses for ten years. It also stipulates that management personnel should stop performing their duties, strengthen the guidance and supervision of the state and self-regulated organizations, and improve the public welfare and transparency of social welfare management institutions.

In an indifferent society, it is not only these disabled children who are not listened to or unable to speak, they are just a microcosm of this socially disadvantaged group. If no one stands up and no more people participate, they will always be ignored. As the film said: "We fight all the way, not to change the world, but to prevent the world from changing us.", we should all pay attention to such social issue to prevent the world from changing us.



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