Silenced (2011)

School of horrors

Silenced is a South korean film released september 22 2011 Based on real life events. Silenced starts with the main character Kang In Ho who has moved to a new town to work at Gwangju Inhwa School for deaf children. Before he gets there he bumps into Seo Yoo Jin who gives her a ride to the school and tells him how she works with human rights organizations. When Kang In ho comes to the school he realizes that something is off about the students. From the way they would run away from him, or would avoid talking to him. When the students finally open up to him, he and yoo jin devotes himself to help the students receive their justice. “Silenced” being based on a true story makes it harder to figure out what the theme could possibly be. But the theme for this movie has to deal with injustice and the mistreatment of disabled people. The audience for this movie is for people 18 years and older. This movie contains graphic imagery of sexual assault and physical abuse . This movie was a heartbreaking watch, Knowing that this stuff happened in real life and that this movie doesn't even show the half of it. It hurt even more because you could feel the pain through the actors in this movies when they interact with each other. What is interesting about this is that after this movie was released it drew more attention to this case and caused public outrage. It even caused a change in laws and whole movements in South korea. This movie is such a moving piece on the insight on how humans can just be an absolute piece of shit. This description does not give them justice even worse than this. But this movie had me crying in the corner for minutes knowing that someone had to go through this and had to feel so small. But because of this reason I rate this movie a 10/10.

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Making my way down the list of highly-rated Korean films, I stumbled upon this one, and was left shocked and disturbed. Initially after viewing, I was angry with the film makers because the shock value alone felt like a form of exploitation of the actors (especially the child actors!) A movie like this should NOT be made for the profit motive.

However, I've since found that the film was the filmmakers' quest for justice based on a real-life example, known as the Gwangju Inhwa School. This whole sordid episode had been written up as a novel of the same title and the film took on the role of loudspeaker to the public. Indeed, the impact of the film on Korean society was like an invisible hand that pushed through reform for regulations that gave rise to ugly events and people showcased in the film.

But the film's also like a mercury needle probing under the skin of society for saturated poison, and behold! found a dark, disgusting wound. The easy answer would be to punish the most apparent perpetrators, then live and forget, live and forget as if something alas has been done -- although truth be told, the real story was more staggering, involving more faculty and administrators, with the history of the school connecting to the crème de la crème of the community, over the span of countless more years.

At the core of it, this film is testimony to the sheer abundance of poverty and its effects on a nameless town or community. If our general mentality is the NIMBY ("not in my backyard") approach, and there is present a sizable class of those unwanted, neglected, and absolutely vulnerable, who ultimately pays the price? Let the question be better phrased - do you care where the garbage goes after it's been picked up?

The film is a mirror on society, offering us a pitiful look at the grotesqueries of our nature. It's not the first, and will not be the last, since recently I found another novel - in the US - that seemed to have been cut from the same cloth: The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead.

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proceed with caution

In my memory, the Crucible/Silenced is by far the hardest film I've ever watched. It is bleak as the dense fog covering the area of Mujin, and the ending is undeniably the most realistic given the context, where corruption goes the distance with money.

Initially I went into this film for being an avid fan of Gong Yoo’s work in 2018, and knew it was not going to be a light watch. But it must be emphasised that nothing could prepare the viewer for the harrowing true story and extremely graphic scenes depicting abuse of the children at the school. Even at the time of writing this review, the recollection of the man poking his head above the bathroom stall is the stuff of nightmares.

The performances were praise-worthy and difficult to criticise, the children especially in encapsulating the immense suffering the victims had endured in its most unrelenting form. The silence throughout the film was insufferable, and by no means an accident. Accompanied with dark palettes with barely a stretch of light and the many enclosed spaces in the building, there was never a moment of release for the viewer from start to finish. Every scene is unflinching as it is unsettling, with the deep rooted fear of not knowing what you will see next.

While most now would recognize Gong Yoo for his cameo in Squid Game (same director), many kdrama fans would remember his role in Goblin. In my humble opinion, his appearance as the school teacher remains his strongest and most memorable performance. It was said during his scene with the car, the injuries were not done by make up, and through it his overwhelming emotions were expressed from knowing what happened to the children. His dedication to the role couldn’t go unnoticed in his raw expressions of anger, disbelief and the sheer helplessness of an adult against the myriad of corrupted and disgusting individuals.

With these being said, this isn’t a film I recommend lightheartedly, nor it's one that begs a rewatch. The Crucible/Silenced would linger in your mind many years after only seeing it once. It’s an important work that managed to spread awareness of horrifying events that could take place behind closed doors, especially in institutes that many may view in a good light and hence avoid suspicion. After all, the worst monsters come as wolves in sheep's clothing.

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Even when knowing what's going to happen... you can't imagine how bad it is.

I seriously felt like I knew what I was getting into but I clearly wasn't. This movie makes you face the worst part of humanity, and doesn't give you a lot of hope. However, I recommend watching it as it will make you realize how much we have to be ready to fight for people who are suffering, because no one else will do it for you.

A few random points I'd like to add:
The actors are brilliant, all of them, children included. It was so heart wrenching to watch such horrible things happen to children so realistically. But the worst part was probably the helplessness of the very few adults willing to help. Even some of them who clearly realized something was wrong still didn't act. It really makes you think a lot about how much bravery and strength is needed to go against the status quo.

This story is important. So important that even if the movie was horrifying to watch, I don't regret it. Because these children suffered so much, no one should ignore them. It's the least we can do since clearly we all failed them.

All in all, it's a movie that makes you think about yourself and about society. It's a movie that puts you face to face with real life monsters, and I'm not only talking about the rapists and abusers, but also about those who choose to let them continue their rampage only for the sake of money or other menial things. I hope anyone who watches this movie will find it in themselves to act against such abuse if they are to witness it in the future.

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An exhausting and infuriating film

To be quite fair, I skipped so many parts of this movie, because it was just so unbearable to watch, that I'm not sure I can say if it was good or not, all I can say is that I feel.... unsure and angry and sad and disappointed in humanity.

It was a very well-made movie with fantastic acting from the entire cast, especially the children, and I'm happy it created so much anger that it led to change in legislations in South Korea regarding the sexual abuse of children and people with disabilities, but I don't think it needed to put the child actors in a position where they had to film such graphic scenes.

I think the graphic nature completely destroys any rewatch value of the movie, and I'm questioning the need to risk potentially traumatizing these children. There has to be better ways to explore sexual assault in movies, especially of minors, in a way that does not put the actors at any risk.

I hope they had psychological support during the filming process, because no art is worth hurting a child.

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Harrowing and heartwrenching

This was a really really heavy watch, but in the best way; I really felt emotionally invested in the main characters — both the adults who were doing the right thing against all odds, and for the children who we were watching learn to trust people again and actually act (and laugh) like kids should — and in the outcome of the legal process. In the end, it was a really bittersweet and realistic sort of ending, but it was the best I hoped for and I thought it was perfect.

The acting was so good for all the characters, but especially the three kids. I could feel their fear, their pain, and their hope in every single one of their scenes.

There were some parts of the story — more side aspects of complacency — that I wanted to see more of because of the moral greyness, but I understand why it wasn't the focus of the movie and I think the movie did just fine without it.

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A primeira coisa que preciso dizer sobre esse filme, é que foi tremendamente díficil de assistir. Não por ser ruim, mas porque é doloroso. É de esmagar seu coração em pedacinhos.

Logo no começo, eles dizem que todo o filme foi baseado em fatos reais e isso pesa ainda mais na sua cabeça quando você descobre o que está acontecendo naquela escola. Eu tive que pular muitas partes do filme, por ser algo realmente difícil de assistir. Tem muitos gatilhos, então cuidado se você decidir assistir.

A atuação dos atores, principalmente das crianças, são impecáveis, o roteiro é ótimo, mas mesmo assim não é um filme que eu conseguiria assistir uma segunda vez.

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