Based on Cha Bum-suk’s play, Flame in the Valley is set in the mountain village that is wounded by the ideological confrontation of the Korean War. The lives of women who blame the war for the absence of their men have become devastated and they are mentally exhausted. The film rather focuses on their repressed desire than their condition. One day, Jum-rye encounters a deserter from the North Korean Army. Their feelings for each other grow as she secretly looks after him. Sa-wol, a man-craved widow, discovers their relationship and gets in their way. Like its contemporary literary films, Flame in the Valley extricates historicity from the text. The Korean War is not a main motif-it sets the background and as the camera foregrounds nature rather than the characters. Thus, the history is extracted from the time and space of the film, and replaced with squirming desire. By making women desiring subjects, the film transcends the gender order enforced by state-nationalist ideology of the time. (Park Ji-yeon)