No one can agree about what happened at South Korea's No Gun Ri Bridge between June 26 and 29, 1950. The press reports that unearthed the story in 1999 claim that panicked US soldiers massacred 300 Korean refugees under orders from commanders who believed North Korean spies were hiding in the group. Dueling books published in the early 2000's discredited some of these eyewitnesses, then validated them, lowered the casualty count, then raised the casualty count and finally just settled for accusing each other of "raping history." Was No Gun Ri the worst military massacre of civilians until My Lai? Was it a minor incident blown out of proportion? Did it even happen?

America has had its say, and now it's Korea's turn. Impossibly controversial, A Little Pond is shot from a neutral, God's-eye-view, like a Hou Hsiao-hsien homage to village life. Eschewing main characters, the camera glides from conversation to conversation, family to family. The girls in summer school can't stand the disgusting boys. The village elders are hanging out at the crossroads, playing chess and gossiping. Mrs. Min is mad at her husband again and is threatening to walk out. It's a sleepy summer's day and no one's completely convinced that a war is even actually going on.

And suddenly there's a massacre. It comes out of nowhere, it makes no sense, and it tears the village to shreds. It's the closest cinema can come to the victim's experience of wartime atrocity and it is as savage as it is unexpected. There is a village, then there's a massacre, then there is a village again. Because life does go on, harvest comes again, children keep growing and survivors move on with their lives. Director Lee erases the stardom of his all-star cast, and instead makes a movie where the biggest character is the Korean countryside. And when its face is splattered with blood it feels like blasphemy.