This study analyzed how the chief characteristics of Mikhail Bakhtin’s carnival theory are realized in Lee Jun Ik’s movies, 〈Once Upon A Time In The Battlefield〉, 〈King And The Clown〉, 〈Blades of Blood〉, and 〈Battlefield Heroes〉, taking history as their subject matter and also what kind of new meaning the characteristics create for the audience. Dividing the main characteristics of Bakhtin’s carnival theory into four categories, this paper used them as the frame of reference for the analysis.
First, according to the examination on 〈Once Upon A Time In The Battlefield〉 and 〈Battlefield Heroes〉 from the aspects of the carnivalization of war and the destruction and rollover of hierarchical order, they do carnivalization with the war itself as a gust of festival through the mechanism of satire and laughter and deconstruct the recognition on history, the fixed and lined-up formal culture. With this, the director builds a reversed carnival world and produces the world of freedom and equality. 〈King And The Clown〉 also shows the ‘delightful relativity’ of satire and laughter with the mask play and the square language and also the king’s degradation and the carnival characteristics of crowning and decrowning. Also, it has been discovered that 〈Blades of Blood〉, too, shows the decentration and deconstruction of carnivalism and conformity to the core value of revival and rehabilitation with the gaze at the world of hopes made by the negation of the oppressive ruling culture and the collision of human desire.
Second, it has been found that from the aspects of square language and the destruction of formal speech codes, it acquires ambivalent value, that is, to secure freedom and equality through vulgar words, laughter, abuse, and insult over divinity or absolute power. Moreover, through the abuse, dialect, and the linguistic parody, it destroys formal speech codes, and also with the mechanism of laughter, it enhances the recognition on history and produces the multiphony of perception on reality.
Third, from the aspects of distortion and grotesqueness of figures, either historical facts or figures were expressed in the forms of distortion, exaggeration, abasement, or satire. It is not about the character and image of a fixed figure in history but about the creation of a new figure, that is, the grotesque carnival characteristics of duplicity. In this way, it lays down the existing order of consciousness, and from various viewpoints, it provides another possibility to interpret the movie to see a new world.
Fourth, it is about the aspects of historical satire and ideology. Watching historical films has the properties of projecting reality into them. All the films analyzed here have the ideology to provide previous value to the lives of grass-roots individuals rather than the value pursued by formal culture, that is, the macro-discourse value. 〈Blades of Blood〉 depicts the futility of producing the mixed collision of human desire to propose the sight to criticize reality.
As written above, Lee Jun Ik’s movies let us reflect on reality with the mirror of laughter. And it has been found that the film aesthetics letting us acquire ambivalent value conforms to Mikhail Bakhtin’s carnivalism.