Film Screening: “Comfort” (Lee Hyerin, 2020) + conversation with the director

About the film:

Known as “Yankee Princess” and “UN Madame,” women who were sexual laborers for the US military camptowns, filed a lawsuit against Korean government and called themselves “U.S. Military Comfort Women.”

Chasing forgotten voices and erased traces, this film tells you a story about comfort women system in Korea, which have lasted since World War II.

Director’s statement:

“In Korea, ‘Comfort Women’ doesn’t only mean Japanese military comfort women.” This phrase is part of a statement written by the US Military Comfort Women plaintiff group. This short sentence came as a rallying cry by women who had lived through the prejudice and contempt of people for a long time. How do we automatically come up with only women who served the Japanese military when we are told ‘Comfort Women’? I decide to trace their stories through this film as well as to find out where our eyes fall upon “Comfort Women.”

Reviewer's notes:

“While the Japanese military ‘comfort women’ have been publicized to some extent, the existence of ‘comfort women’ for the U.S. military is not well known. This was partly due to reluctance to mention the ‘comfort women’ issue institutionalized by the Korean government while the Japanese military ‘comfort women’ issue was not resolved. It was also a problem of perception in Korean society, which defined acts of prostitution by these so-called ‘camp town women,’ as voluntary rather than coerced. The government and society thus turned a blind eye to the irrationality of the system and its internal contradictions. Nevertheless, the Korean government promulgated a system of ‘comfort women’ for the U.S. military and managed cases of sexually transmitted diseases. Comfort brings the issue of these ‘comfort women,’ which had been kept quiet during the Korean War and the Cold War, to the surface.

Consisting of nine chapters, Comfort uses national records, video and photographic materials, interviews with researchers and activists, and testimonies of both Japanese and American military ‘comfort women’ to reveal the unspoken history of American military ‘comfort women.’ The film also explores limitations: the absence of those who can testify as well as the continued prejudice in Korean society against sex workers. The film juxtaposes images and audio such as the beach, the sound of waves, and the ruins of a concentration camp for those who failed to pay their debts. These inserts, like the blackouts between chapters, become places where historical gaps appear.”

—Bae Ju-yeon / Film Researcher

Trailer: