In 1925 an avid cave explorer, Floyd Collins, became trapped in a narrow crawl space. Though he was discovered and help came with food and water, a cave in left him sealed off down there and fourteen days later he died of thirst and exposure. As tragic as this obviously is, Floyd Collins is remembered for another reason – his rescue became one of the earliest mass media crazes. The surrounding media furore also inspired the 1951 Billy Wilder classic Ace in the Hole in which a grizzled reporter attempts to manipulate the fate of a man trapped in a cave for the maximum media coverage with the consequence that his delays cost the man his life. Jung-soo, a father on his way home with a birthday cake for his young daughter is about to join the marooned underground club when a shoddily built tunnel collapses sealing him inside. Unfortunately for Jung-soo, he finds that times have not changed all that much.
Jung-soo (Ha Jung-woo) was having a good day. He’d closed an important deal and has a birthday cake in the back of his car ready for his little girl when he gets home. He also ends up with two free bottles of water for not making a fuss when a hard of hearing old timer working at the petrol station gives him a full tank rather the $30’s worth he’d asked for. It all comes crashing down, literally, when he starts hearing strange noises shortly after entering a newly completed tunnel. Driving as fast as he can, Jung-soo is still trapped under falling debris and unable to escape though otherwise uninjured. Luckily, Jung-soo’s phone still works and he’s able to get enough signal to dial the emergency services but as he’ll discover, the matter of coming to his rescue may not be as straightforward as one might hope.
Just before Jung-soo heads into the tunnel which has only been open for around a month, there’s a sign testifying to happy and safe construction. It transpires that the tunnel was completed far too quickly, corners were cut, and public safety not properly respected. Corporate corruption and margin squeezing become a constant theme as more and more faults are discovered with the tunnel’s structure right down to missing manuals and incorrect blueprints. As one sardonic construction worker puts it, who follows the rules these days anyway? In light of recent tragedies, the government can no longer be trusted to assure public safety by insuring that its infrastructure, and the third party companies which run it, are fit for purpose and operating in line with public safety standards. The fact is that the construction of the sister tunnel to this one is already underway and there have also been hundreds of other recorded safety incidents in other facilities around the country. Construction means jobs, and money, and progress – who would want to let a little thing like safety stand in the way?
If money grabbing culture and government laissez-faire are two of the greatest evils, the third leg of the tripod is mass communications who see only the story and not the human. In fact, the first people to call Jung-soo back after his emergency call are the reporters parked in their van directly outside the tunnel’s entrance. Even Jung-soo’s wife, Se-hyun (Bae Doona), only discovers her husband’s fate from a TV displaying breaking news at a supermarket. Once she drops everything to get to him, she’s quickly trotted out for endless photo-ops with government officials and rescue workers to sell the story that the entire country is behind Jung-soo in his horrendous ordeal and working hard to get him out of there. The mouth of the tunnel is now a media circus as reporters parasitically dig in, raking up whatever kind of news they can spin for good copy. When it looks like Jung-soo may be rescued, one reporter even seems upset that he hasn’t quite broken the record set by the survivors of the Sampoong Department Store collapse in 1995 (notably also directly caused by corporate greed).
Jung-soo himself accepts his situation with a stoic calmness. Sensibly rationing out his water and battery life on his cellphone, he beds in for the long haul. Before long, the TV news has even declared him a national hero for maintaining his compassionate humanity even in the face of crisis. More resourceful than most, Jung-soo is making the best of things when all he can do is wait, hoping that the authorities will finally come to his rescue. Unfortunately the authorities he’s waiting on are largely the same ones responsible for this entire mess and aside from the valiant commander of the rescue squad Dae-kyoung (Oh Dal-su) are more interested in being able to resume construction on the sister tunnel (which involves more of the blasting that may have destabilised the tunnel in first place) and deflecting the embarrassment of this high profile infrastructure project having gone so catastrophically wrong.
Kim Seong-hun keeps the tension high as Jung-soo fights for his life by simply trying to survive long enough for someone to reach him. Genuinely fraught and claustrophic, Tunnel is not without a healthy dose of black humour lightening the mood in even the bleakest of circumstances. The political subtext is refreshingly subtle yet perfectly clear as Jung-soo finds himself literally buried underneath a national scandal and branded an inconvenient truth by those whose interests lie in maintaining the illusion of compassionate government anchored by friendly corporations. Tense, thrilling, and frightening on more than one level, Tunnel is an unexpectedly thoughtful disaster movie detailing one good man’s struggles to escape from underneath the destruction caused by pervasive social ills.
US release trailer (English subtitles)
Windows on Worlds 