Tearless

(2021)

Tearless  does not tell a story; instead, it brings the viewer into the experience of a place called Monkey House. Following the Korean War, roughly 25,000 US soldiers per year have resided in the US military bases in South Korea, occupying nearly one fifth of the nation’s habitable land. The Korean and US governments worked together to establish 96 camp towns equipped with brothels and clubs around the US military bases, which have involved one million women. In the 1970s, the Korean government required camp town women to wear number tags and Sexually Transmitted Diseases test results on their chests at all times, pressured by the US government to lower STD rates among their soldiers. The women who were suspected to have STD were locked up in a detainment center and treated with harsh doses of penicillin that resulted in severe side effects and occasional deaths. Some women jumped to their deaths trying to escape. The detention center was given the nickname Monkey House because people could hear the women screaming to be let out like monkeys trapped in a zoo. Although no longer in operation, the Monkey House building still remains, claimed by no one, a haunted site between two modern nations. The film depicts a single day based on a real document found on the site.