Memento Mori (film)

Memento Mori (hangul=여고괴담 두번째 이야기; also known as Whispering Corridors 2: Memento Mori) is a 1999 South Korean horror film, and the second installment of the Whispering Corridors film series. It is a sequel to 1998's Whispering Corridors, and is also set in an all girls high school, but the films are otherwise unrelated. Memento Mori was one of the first Korean commercial films to depict lesbian characters. However, prevailing Korean attitudes constrained its potential to be widely viewed, even more so as the controversial themes targeted the teen demographic.

The film revolves around the relationship between two high school students, Yoo Shi eun (Lee Young jin) and Min Hyo shin (Park Ye jin). As the two girls become romantically involved, their taboo relationship causes them to be marginalized by the other students. Unable to cope with the social pressures of having a lover of the same sex, Shi Eun tries to distance herself from the increasingly dependent Hyo shin. Hyo shin reacts poorly to Shi eun's changed attitude, viewing it as both a betrayal and rejection. Hyo shin consequently commits suicide by jumping off of the school roof. It is also heavily implied that she was pregnant at the time of death, the father being literature teacher Mr. Goh (Hyo shin had confessed to Shi eun that she had sex with Mr. Goh)
The plot unfurls in a nonlinear fashion, often from the perspective of fellow student Soh Min ah (Kim Min sun). Min ah grows increasingly invested in Shi eun and Hyo shin when she finds a diary kept between the two alienated girls. This diary allows her disturbing insights to the nature of the relationship and pulls her deeper into a strange chain of events around the school. After Hyo shin's death, supernatural occurrences start to terrorize all of the students that condemned the relationship. It is later revealed that Hyo shin's spirit is malevolently haunting the school through the remnants she left behind in the diary.

There is no comparable South Korean equivalent to the scope of the Western queer film movement. Despite the increasing visibility of the Korean LGBT movement in the 1990s, when Memento Mori was made, queer films of the time frequently concealed LGBT content behind the guise of other genres, such as horror or romance. The elements of horror featured in Memento Mori, which include telepathy and possession, function as a method of creating distance between the audience's reality and the fantasy of the horror movie, and the characters therein. The representation of queer characters within a horror context is further aided by Korea's LGBT history. Despite being tolerated throughout most of Korean history, Neo Confucianism, which came into prominence during the Chosŏn dynasty, eliminated acceptance towards same sex behavior and “effectively made homosexuality invisible, ghostly.” Despite the societal implication of queer people as inherently ghostly, the film does not treat its LGBT characters as the archetypal monsters, representative of societal taboos, as in the Western horror tradition. Rather, Memento Mori’s queer characters are the heroes the story is centered around, and the ghostly terror is directed at the film’s homophobic characters. and it is within the context of these heterosexual relationships that most traditional Korean horror film ghosts seek their revenge. However, the horror cycle starting with Whispering Corridors shifts the focal relationship from familial relationships to friendships, particularly those between school aged girls. The more contemporary version of the Korean ghost story, featuring the ghost of a schoolgirl, is ideal representation for girls, who are taught to internalize their problems. The current education system in South Korea is frequently gender segregated in both middle school and high school, emphasizing distinctive gender norms and attempting to curb sexuality.