There was a novel from 1977 called The Cold Cash War by Robert Asprin (1) in which the “corporate wars” of the future really were wars fought between professional mercenaries. Nearly 50 years later, it’s not hard to imagine, say, ExxonMobil assembling a fighting force if need be. For decades, it hired the Indonesian army to protect its oil fields (and more, unfortunately) during a civil war, and that was for a paltry $500K a month. Imagine what it could scrounge up if it threw real money at a problem?
Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu) was a welder for automaker SP Heavy Industries, but in the culture of Korean labor (2), he was essentially a soldier for his metalworkers’ union. He and his comrades would chant slogans like they were at boot camp on Parris Island. In the wake of massive layoffs, they seized enemy territory by barricading themselves on the factory roofs. And just before being brutally beaten into unconsciousness by police commandos, Ho-seok watched his union comrades abandon him to the authorities. This might as well have been a platoon deserting him on the battlefield, prompting a PTSD that would rival that of any military combatant.
Two years later, he joins his wife Mi-ok (Jean Do-yeon) and son Cheol (Jung Seop) at a funeral for a family friend. Ho-seok can’t bear to go inside. After he eventually acquiesces, we find out why — the service is for a fellow former factory colleague who committed suicide. In America, layoffs can be grim… but folks in the States don’t seem to treat them as a personal affront. However, a layoff in Korea seems tantamount to an assault on one’s sense of self-worth. Those who survive “corporate restructuring” are known as The Living. Those who don’t? The Dead.
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Near the end of the evening, Ho-seok (a few sheets to the wind by now) angrily encounters Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong), who is filming the gathering. It seems a bit gauche, to say the least, documenting the misery for posterity. But she’s making a film chronicling the effects of the SP Heavy layoffs, and finds Ho-seok and Mi-ok to be fascinating subjects.
Ho-seok is notoriously tight-lipped in general, and even more so when it comes to the sit-in and violent clashes with police. But Mi-ok is genuinely flattered by the attention, and becomes enamored by Ye-ji and the lifestyle she represents. Ye-ji didn’t come from money herself, but nabbed a wealthy husband, Sang-woo (Zo In-sung), who is happy to support her endeavors (in spirit if not in cash) while subtly calling out his wife on her friendly behavior. “It’s method acting,” he says — taking an interest in this humdrum woman’s life to endear her for the purposes of her documentary.
Although Ho-seok has recently found a new job, part of his severance with SP allows for occupational counseling. After much cajoling, he finally attends… but it’s too much for him to relive his trauma in front of former colleagues. He walks out when it’s his time to speak.
Everything comes to a head when Sang-woo and Ye-ji invite Ho-seok’s family to their beachfront vacation home for a weekend. The class divide is more stark than ever — especially when young Cheol seems just a bit too eager to pal around with Sang-woo’s gardener, mimicking an earlier tale from Mi-ok about picking up a hose as a young girl at her mom’s car wash job. Mi-ok’s mom had been livid, which confused her daughter for many years. But she eventually understood the message: to never subconsciously think of oneself as relegated to a certain kind of work.
Meanwhile, the adults wage quiet war on two fronts. Sang-woo and Mi-ok face off at the beach, where the wealthy host drops his facade of hospitality, while Ho-seok finally agrees to bare his soul on record for Ye-ji. Mi-ok returns to see her husband in the throes of a complete breakdown. The interview is over. But are the cameras ever completely turned off? There’s a postscript to the weekend that I shan’t reveal.
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Possible Love is director Lee Chang-dong’s first film since 2018’s Burning (3), and in keeping in line with his oeuvre, it’s a gripping, uneasy slow burn. Mi-ok is especially nervous about being on one’s best behavior in the company of the well-to-do, while there’s a steady economic anxiety permeating Ho-seok’s life. His mind seems to be elsewhere at his new job, and one gets the impression that he’s on thin ice. Getting sacked twice? Too horrific to contemplate.
Through it all, one is left contemplating the scruples of documenting the lives of the downtrodden. When does illumination cross the line into exploitation? Does the socioeconomic class of the filmmakers matter? If we start saying, “only working-class people should shine lights on working-class hardships,” we’re heading towards a place where very few of those tales get told.
This film also comes on the heels of the dramatization Primetime (discussed in this very space earlier this month) and the documentary You Can See Everything, about the now-infamous Elizabeth Holmes. Both of those movies involve shining a spotlight on rather unsavory figures — do we give them lots of ethical leeway for that reason? It’s one thing to push a nefarious character to their breaking point, it’s quite another to do the same with a victim.
Lee opens the movie with a quote from the Ten Commandments: “Thou Shall Not Covet,” a directive which comes into stark focus in Possible Love’s final act. I’ll let Lee himself have the final word here: “The way we live is changing drastically, and we feel pain and struggle because of that, and sometimes feel frustration and despair. But no matter how much the human condition changes, what allows us to overcome that is the way we think about freedom. No matter how capital might define us and deprive us of various conditions of living, we as individuals can overcome that through freedom; your freedom is for you to claim.”
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(1) Asprin was better-known as the author of the long-running MythAdventures fantasy satire series that was a staple of this humble scribe’s childhood. Harry Who? The wizard who was near and dear to my heart was a country bumpkin named Skeeve.
(2) It’s not hard to connect the dots here when taking into account the national zeitgeist. Not only does Korea require mandatory conscription for all men, but the country was ruled by a military junta for nearly three decades before democratic reforms were instituted in the late 1980s.
(3) I wasn’t super-high on Burning, but I view his earlier works Poetry, Secret Sunshine, and Oasis as masterpieces. Be forewarned: emotionally, they are not for the faint of heart.