South Koreans get dewy-eyed about a former president

A DOCUMENTARY that intersperses old friends reminiscing about a late head of state with archive footage of him on the hustings hardly sounds like a blockbuster. Yet in South Korea, “Our President”, about the early political career of Roh Moo-hyun, is the film that moviegoers are most eager to see, according to pollsters. No other documentary has been even half as popular in its first week. In online forums self-described jungalmot (political dummies) say they “cried buckets” when they watched it.

The film is an unabashed eulogy: 30-odd former aides, friends and commentators reminisce along with members of Nosamo (“I love Roh”), a fan club that helped bring him to power and that is still active. A former secret-service agent who had been instructed to spy on Roh as a “dangerous” human-rights lawyer describes how he became his friend. Roh’s driver recalls how Roh, in a self-effacing role reversal, drove him around on his honeymoon. Moon Jae-in, South Korea’s new president and Roh’s former chief-of-staff, reads aloud the note Roh left in 2009 before he jumped off a cliff to his death amid a bribery scandal.