I still remember how shocking the sinking of MV Sewol incident was to me and many other South Koreans. When there came sudden news reports on the incident during the morning of April 16th, 2014, it did not seem that disastrous as we were told that everyone on the ship was saved at least, but then it soon turned out to be much more devastating than expected, and we were all the more outraged as how incompetent and heartless President Park Geu-hye and her government were in handling this terrible incident and the aftermath during next few years.

South Korean film “Sewol: Years in the Wind” simply and patiently followed the long plight of the surviving family members of those many young victims of the incident. At that time, a big group of boys and girls from one high school in a city called Ansan were on the ship, and most of them died mainly because they were simply told to stay inside the ship even when it was sinking. Needless to say, the parents of these dead students including co-director Kim Hwan Tae, who made the documentary along with Moon Jong-taek, were quite devastated to realize that their kids were not saved at all from the beginning, and they instantly demanded the government the open and thorough investigation on the incident, while trying to cope with their immense pain and grief.

However, the parents only found themselves getting more traumatized and frustrated due to what followed next to them. As President Park and her government did not do anything helpful for them at all, they decided to take care of their urgent matter for themselves, but then they were cruelly harassed and oppressed by the government and President Park’s right-wing party as well as those powerful media companies, who all stopped at nothing to insult and humiliate the parents. While her government willfully used the police and many other legal means for silencing the parents as much as possible, her party and several right-wing media companies constantly attempted to make the parents look like greedy people trying to benefit from the death of their children. Sadly, this tactic worked on many right-wing people to some degree even though there were also a considerable number of liberal and moderate supporters for the parents.

One of the most painful and infuriating moments in the documentary comes from a bunch of right-wing bullies and thugs deliberately eating lots of junk food right in front of the parents when the parents were attempting a public hunger strike. This surely reminded me again that there are lots of deplorable free-range rudes out there in the South Korean society who willingly give up being decent citizens and human beings because of hate and bigotry – just like those hateful MAGA people out there in US.

The parents still tried to stick together for drawing more public attention to their important cause, but their pain and frustration only got increased more day by day as they were pushed back further and further despite their desperate efforts. At one point, the school of their dead children eventually decided to clean up all of the kids’ classrooms which had functioned as memorial spots for a while, and this was surely another painfully unfair stab at their grieving heart.

At least, it later looked like there finally came a small light for the parents around late 2016 as the sheer incompetence of President Park and her government was fully revealed at last. Yes, they could have actually responded quickly to the incident, but President Park, who was revealed out to be a virtually mindless puppet of her equally hapless best friend as many of us had suspected for years, was totally at a loss about what to do next, and many government documents showed more of how much she and her government systemically oppressed the parents for covering up their gross incompetence.

In the end, the South Korean society was rocked by a series of massive public protests demanding the impeachment of President Park, and the parents were exalted when the congress eventually allowed the impeachment, but, again, they were let down by many of those prominent politicians including President Park’s successor President Moon Jae-in. While President Park was subsequently ousted early in the next year, she was not prosecuted at all for her incompetent response to the incident, and President Moon, whom I came to dislike and criticize more these days even though he was supposed to be a liberal compared to President Park, and his party only threw empty promises to the parents without caring much about the full investigation on the incident. As a matter of fact, he even pardoned President Park before eventually being succeeded by the current president of South Korea a few years ago.

And the parents were let down further as watching how the South Korean society and its people got more inclined to move on without looking back at the incident and their pain and suffering from that at all. They have wanted to make a memorial park in their city for their lost children and other victims, but many people were against that as wrongfully arguing that it will make their neighborhood look bad and disreputable, and President Moon and his government provided no help or support at all. The parents continued to protest as before, but they were reminded again and again of how apathic and callous the South Korean society and its people can be, and then there came the Seoul Halloween crowd crush incident on October 29th, 2022, another traumatic disaster clearly showing that their society and its people and government did not learn much from the sinking of MV Sewol incident.

Overall, “Sewol: Years in the Wind” is another earnest documentary about the surviving family members of the sinking of MV Sewol incident after “Life Goes On” (2021), which incidentally regards its main subject in a relatively wider view. As watching these good two documentaries one by one yesterday, I came to reflect more on the very serious systemic flaws of the South Korean society and government with more bitterness and sadness, and I certainly recommend both of them if you still care about the truth and justice for the surviving family members of the victims of the sinking of MV Sewol incident. Yes, they are trying very hard even at present for the closure still beyond their reach, and they do need all the support and compassion we can give right now.