Tunnel uses a disaster underneath to highlight the follies above the ground
Conceptually-speaking, being trapped or confined in a limited space is a common plot device in cinema. It's what happens on the fringes - or if we may say so, above and outside - and how a director can make "most" out of a cramped space that can elevate a film utilizing such a familiar set-up. This is what "Tunnel" (2016, South Korea), written and directed by Kim Seong-hun ("A Hard Day"), succeeds in doing. Just like in the recent "Train to Busan," the genre cover is meant as a way to lay bare some of the failures and inefficiencies in the government and bureaucratic machinery. It's like these Korean filmmakers are doing their best to entertain us, while making sure that they still manage to vent out their anger towards a dysfunctional society, which is presumably their primary aim when they crafted their respective films.
The plot is fairly simple: Lee Jung-soo (Ha Jung-woo of "The Chaser" and "The Yellow Sea," both helmed by "The Wailing"'s Na Hong-jin), a 38-year-old car salesman and family man, is unfortunate enough to have a road tunnel collapsed on him while driving home to celebrate his young daughter's birthday. It's a good thing that Jung-soo's cellphone has enough power and signal still for him to be able to place an emergency call to the rescue authorities. And so the rescue operation begins. From this point, this should really be just an altogether straight rescue-and-save mission, shouldn't it? But Kim has other things in mind. Structurally-speaking, Jung-soo's rescue from the crumbles won't be a piece of cake (spoiler right away: it took about 35 days for him to literally finally see the light at the end of the tunnel). The destruction of the Hado Tunnel (the filmic name of the structure) is massive and intense in nature that it's truly a miracle that Jung-soo managed to survive through all those times (never mind that the film is actually asking us to suspend our disbelief considerably).
But his ordeal is all the more exacerbated by the follies that are taking place above the ground: the media circus and the government incompetence, which reduce his plight to mere spectacle and a venue for photo-ops. As the days drag on, the media is more than ever concerned with getting the latest scoop while the government is steadily losing interest in the rescue mission, regarding the life trapped below as a negligible single figure, in the name of keeping up a public image of stability and lucrativeness. Any loopholes and cracks in a government-sponsored infrastructure project must be kept hidden as much as possible (not just literally speaking, of course). Time is slowly but surely running out on Jung-soo and little does he know that almost everyone above is willing to abandon him for good.
"Tunnel" mainly works because the director earnestly eschews disaster-movie tropes (though it features a couple of suspenseful disaster setpieces) in favor of a biting satire and an intimate personal survival drama. Kim Tae-sung's camera and Lee Hwo-kyoung's production design turn Jung-soo's cramped and crumbled space below into a compelling world of its own, while the sound design lends every bit of rock, dust and steel heard in that environment a sinister feel, as if at any minute the hapless protagonist will be certainly doomed to a fate of being buried alive. Ha competently musters both pathos and humor out of his debilitating situation to somehow offset its gravity while still keeping the audience sympathy for him. His character in the film is a major departure from his offbeat turns in Na Hong-jin's works. A devoted and hardworking family man being trapped in a claustrophobic nightmare - it would be impossible to find someone who wouldn't root for him.
We may actually consider "Tunnel" as a sort of spiritual cousin of Sidney Lumet's "Dog Day Afternoon," as both films depict how the plight of an ordinary individual can balloon into a media sensation and spotlight a crippled bureaucratic machinery. The difference is that in the latter, the protagonist is well aware of this and uses it to serve his agenda; while in the former, the main character (at least for some time) is clueless as to the kind of spectacle his ordeal has become above the ground and must necessarily utilize all available resources within reach, however scant, to ensure survival underneath. And when Jung-soo is finally lifted from the pits (no small thanks to a good-natured and dedicated head of the rescue operations, who's in fact the only other sympathetic character in the film), he has all the rights to lambast all the people waiting like hungry sharks for the opportune moment provided by his rescue. It's amusingly ironic to see the kind of finger that Jung-soo raises following the occasion.
(Time runs out underneath for Ha Jung-woo as the authorities above buy their time in his rescue in Kim Seong-hun's "Tunnel")
The plot is fairly simple: Lee Jung-soo (Ha Jung-woo of "The Chaser" and "The Yellow Sea," both helmed by "The Wailing"'s Na Hong-jin), a 38-year-old car salesman and family man, is unfortunate enough to have a road tunnel collapsed on him while driving home to celebrate his young daughter's birthday. It's a good thing that Jung-soo's cellphone has enough power and signal still for him to be able to place an emergency call to the rescue authorities. And so the rescue operation begins. From this point, this should really be just an altogether straight rescue-and-save mission, shouldn't it? But Kim has other things in mind. Structurally-speaking, Jung-soo's rescue from the crumbles won't be a piece of cake (spoiler right away: it took about 35 days for him to literally finally see the light at the end of the tunnel). The destruction of the Hado Tunnel (the filmic name of the structure) is massive and intense in nature that it's truly a miracle that Jung-soo managed to survive through all those times (never mind that the film is actually asking us to suspend our disbelief considerably).
But his ordeal is all the more exacerbated by the follies that are taking place above the ground: the media circus and the government incompetence, which reduce his plight to mere spectacle and a venue for photo-ops. As the days drag on, the media is more than ever concerned with getting the latest scoop while the government is steadily losing interest in the rescue mission, regarding the life trapped below as a negligible single figure, in the name of keeping up a public image of stability and lucrativeness. Any loopholes and cracks in a government-sponsored infrastructure project must be kept hidden as much as possible (not just literally speaking, of course). Time is slowly but surely running out on Jung-soo and little does he know that almost everyone above is willing to abandon him for good.
"Tunnel" mainly works because the director earnestly eschews disaster-movie tropes (though it features a couple of suspenseful disaster setpieces) in favor of a biting satire and an intimate personal survival drama. Kim Tae-sung's camera and Lee Hwo-kyoung's production design turn Jung-soo's cramped and crumbled space below into a compelling world of its own, while the sound design lends every bit of rock, dust and steel heard in that environment a sinister feel, as if at any minute the hapless protagonist will be certainly doomed to a fate of being buried alive. Ha competently musters both pathos and humor out of his debilitating situation to somehow offset its gravity while still keeping the audience sympathy for him. His character in the film is a major departure from his offbeat turns in Na Hong-jin's works. A devoted and hardworking family man being trapped in a claustrophobic nightmare - it would be impossible to find someone who wouldn't root for him.
We may actually consider "Tunnel" as a sort of spiritual cousin of Sidney Lumet's "Dog Day Afternoon," as both films depict how the plight of an ordinary individual can balloon into a media sensation and spotlight a crippled bureaucratic machinery. The difference is that in the latter, the protagonist is well aware of this and uses it to serve his agenda; while in the former, the main character (at least for some time) is clueless as to the kind of spectacle his ordeal has become above the ground and must necessarily utilize all available resources within reach, however scant, to ensure survival underneath. And when Jung-soo is finally lifted from the pits (no small thanks to a good-natured and dedicated head of the rescue operations, who's in fact the only other sympathetic character in the film), he has all the rights to lambast all the people waiting like hungry sharks for the opportune moment provided by his rescue. It's amusingly ironic to see the kind of finger that Jung-soo raises following the occasion.
(Time runs out underneath for Ha Jung-woo as the authorities above buy their time in his rescue in Kim Seong-hun's "Tunnel")
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