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DMZ Industry Projects



Diary from the Battlefield

YANG Jinyong

  • South Korea
  • 90min
  • mov
  • color

Art&Culture History War&Conflict

Synopsis

Seymour Bernstein is a pianist living in New York, nowa 93-year-old man who thinks more about his days gone by than the days that lie ahead of him.

70 years ago, he served in the Korean War as an American infantryman. The war showed him a lot of things. People lived in dire poverty, children starved, and cities fell into ruin. ¡°I will never hold a gun!¡±He would somehow manage to carry a heavy grand piano on a truck instead of a gun, and perform on the front lines. He played more than a hundred times for eight months. He could hear blasts while performing. He would keep a diary whenever he found spare time. The Korean War that the young blue-eyed pianist had gone through is recorded in his two diaries.
Until now, he had never thought that the war affected his life and music. Why hasn¡¯t he opened the diaries, not even once? Why did he burst into tears seeing those diaries? He then realizes that he needs to confront the memories he had buried within in his diaries. 

Review

On April 24th, 1951,on his 24th birthday, Seymour Bernstein was dispatched to the Korean War as an infantryman in the U.S. 8th Army. He performed more than a hundred times for eight months across battlefields. He would play Chopin even when cannonballs were flying above his head, and even when he could hear a burst of nearby gun fire from Chinese soldiers. At night, he kept a diary of what had happened that day. The vivid memories of those times are in his two diaries. Diary from the Battlefield was planned in order to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Korean War in 2020. He recalls the memories of war that he had wanted to forget, so much so that he had never seen those diaries properly until he turned 93. The film is about war, youth and piano that the diaries and documentary record. War and art - these two themes greatly impress human beings regardless of race or language. Seymour Bernstein is now waiting for the day to play in a peaceful Korea again. His play is going to give people who wish for peace the energy of healing and recovery.

Director

  • YANG Jinyong

     

Credit

  • Producer±èÇö¼ö KIM Hyunsu