It shouldn’t be surprising to most people that there is a noticeably large influx of movies that tie directly to labor exploitation. With Wang Bing’s magnanimous documentary Youth, to Boots Riley’s zany crime escapade I Love Boosters, to John Early’s funny and touching Maddie’s Secret, filmmakers are dispensing their feelings of work and its precarious future in many movies. This isn’t even to touch on that the Dardenne Brothers have been doing for more than 20 years since Rosetta or Aki Kaurismaki has been hitting on the head like a hammer basically his whole career. Recently Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love is one of the more affecting and incisive portrayals of worker exploitation and class conflict of recent years.
An Uncomfortably Familiar Situation
South Korea has recently gone through a massive economic crisis, which it is reportedly recovering from but has yet to actually positively affect ordinary worker households. Lee’s film centers on such a household and marriage. Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon) and Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu) are a middle class couple who have come into dire straits years after Ho-seok was laid off from his factory job. They are not alone however, there is a whole community of workers from the factory who were laid off after “downsizing” and potential sale to a foreign investment firm. It’s a tale that is becoming a reality in every industry.
Both leads perfectly encapsulate the feelings of a marriage on the brink, slowly causing a rift through an unbearable sense of grief. Sul maintains a stoic façade that hides much deeper pain. His character Ho-seok in particular is haunted by the event and has taken to alcoholism and his behavior and other undisclosed reasons have ostracized him from his fellow former union workers. Jeon’s acting is marked by the helplessness of her demeanor, the way she moves aimlessly and looks downward and never gives a particularly strong-voiced answer to anything. There is an immediate understanding that Mi-ok is simply tired of it all.
An Acting Tour-de-force
When the couple befriend Sang-woo (Zo In-sung) and Lee Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong) who are rich and work white collar jobs, the class disparities reveal themselves in unexpected ways. Lee Chang-dong generally avoids creating any monologues or diatribes that directly address the topical socio-politics of the film until the right moments. Mostly, we see the film as acting theater, and a tour de force at that, with Lee’s camera highlighting facial expressions, blocking, and movement relative to one another that elicits feeling.
We notice immediately through the voices and hesitation that Mi-ok and Ho-soek are both impressed but embarrassed at their friendship with their wealthy friends. Every meal and ride in their luxury car brings uneasiness. Sang-woo and Mi-ok’s silent romantic chemistry is also only hinted at in subtle physicality, like how they walk beside each other down a dirt path towards the beach, how they hesitate to really stay next to each other and create awkward distance out of obligation.
Conclusion
Lee Chan-dong’s latest film differs from many of his previous films in the ways it pares down its narrative secrets and keeps the dynamics of the actors at the forefront. There is less intrigue in this film but it is powerful in its own weight as a movie undeniably speaking about our current world. It may not have the shock of Peppermint Candy, Poetry, or Burning, but it replaces it with a ferocious sadness, one that is at one cathartic and apprehensive about the future.
Possible Love is releasing in US theaters on October 23rd, and on Netflix on November 6th.
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