An analysis of Kim Ki-Duk's films in thecontext of Derrida's concept of "hospitality"

This study examines how social criticism is constructed through the lens of Jacques Derrida's concepts of "conditional" and "unconditional hospitality" in four films by South Korean auteur director Kim Ki-duk: Time (2006), Samaritan Girl (2004), 3-Iron (2004), and The Net (2016). In this study, cinema is approached as an intellectual space that reflects cultural and political developments. As a filmmaker who has at times been marginalized within his own society and national film industry, Kim Ki-duk's cinema, which focuses on exclusion, boundary crossing and otherness, provides a fertile narrative ground for analysis through Derrida's theory of hospitality. The study analyzes representations that develop along dichotomies such as individual - society, host - guest, and insider - outsider, based on Derrida's understanding of hospitality. In order to shed light on the inner structure of hospitality, it questions how characters are represented through the figures of the "other," the "stranger," and the "guest"; how boundaries are established and transgressed; and under what conditions hospitality becomes possible or impossible. Subsequently, the study explores how the filmmaker ethically represents the host or guest. In Time (2006), bodily transformation triggered by jealousy and insecurity results in an estrangement not only from the other, but also from the self. Samaritan Girl (2004) portrays a conditional form of hospitality governed by moral norms within the family and marked by tensions among friends. 3- Iron (2004) offers a different perspective on unconditional hospitality by depicting the violation of boundaries surrounding private space, the home. Meanwhile, The Net (2016) opens a discussion on the impossibility of reciprocal or one-sided hospitality at political borders. In this context, the study invites the reader to reconsider Derrida's assertion that "we still do not know what hospitality is" through the representations that extend from the individual to society in Kim Ki-duk's films, and to better understand the director's critical stance toward society. This limited analysis of four selected films aims to offer an intellectual starting point for further studies in the field on the relationship between hospitality and cinema.