Possible Love is getting love for its masterful social critique

Making new electoral maps is usually a pretty routine process, but not in Alberta. I'm Kathleen Petty, and this week on West of Center, how a non-partisan process exploded into political theater with accusations of American style, gerrymandering, and threats of a court challenge. What does it all mean for democracy in Alberta, and could, is that a precedent for the rest of Canada? We'll get into it this week on West of Center. Find 'em, follow wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. I'm Alameda Mahmoud, and this is commotion. "Possible Love" is the latest film from Korean director Yichang Dong. It's been eight years since his film "Burning One International Awards." "Possible Love" is getting a lot of love as well. It won the silver line, grand jury prize, and Venice, many critics are calling it one of the best movies of the year. You can now watch it. On Netflix, it's available. It's out there. Michelle Cho and Radson Play have both seen it. They're here to talk about it. Hello to both of you. Hello. Nice to have you guys here. Listen, before we get into "Possible Love," I do want to talk about Yichang Dong for a moment, because he's considered a master of blending social critique and poetic cinema. Rad, for you, a movie from him is an event. -Why is he one of your favorite directors? -Oh, definitely a event. When people ask me, "Oh, what movies are you looking forward to?" The only time I ever get excited about a movie is if it's a Scorsese, or a PTA, or a Yichang Dong movie. That's what gets me hyped. It's because, of course, this guy, he's very singular in the way that he has these very novel, realistic, slow-burnt melodramas, and I think I'll go right to the thing that really makes him stand apart from me, from other filmmakers, is that his movies, they're so heavy. They are devastating movies. You go back to a movie like "Secret Sunshine," it's about a mother who's grieving her murder child. You go back to poetry, it's about a grandmother reckoning with her grandson's possible involvement in a brutal sexual assault. These are the kind of things, topics, that any other filmmaker approaching that stuff would make me wary. I would side-eye it. Because there is that tendency to dwell on that trauma in a way that's sensationalizing, and that is partly what possible love is actually about. But Lee Chang Dong, first of all, he approaches a lot of that material with a lot of personal experience. He's had a very tragic back-life, and also he's just not that kind of filmmaker, because when he is dwelling in the trauma, when he's dealing with these heavy things, he's approaching it with this genuine curiosity, this real sincerity for how people emerge from those situations, how they heal, how they relate to the world around him. And really, the movies are about the world around them. Because like you said, he's dealing with government corruption and class tension, and all that social critique. And so all of that is really what makes him so brilliant. I'll get to possible love into some moment, Michele, but I think the thing the rats had there is a big thing. The idea of he said, I only look forward to movies from Paul Thomas Anderson, Martin Scrooze, as in Lee Chang Dong, that's it, that's sort of the list. You're also a fan. What makes him stand up for you? Why is a movie from him an event? Yeah, I mean, I so share the sentiments that Red just express, because all of I feel so much the same way. I mean, aesthetically as a filmmaker, he's just amazing at setting up these like slow subtle moments that really force the viewer to pay close attention. That maintain their subtlety, but then have a really, really clear like emotional release, emotional point. And so the moral coordinates of the filmmaking are crystalline, even if there's a lot of like subtlety that builds there. I think he really stands apart in the Korean industry, because unlike his peers, like who are sometimes better known, higher profile, like Bong Joon-ho and Park Joon-hok, he really dedicates himself to this kind of observational, like poetic realism in his films. They're kind of known for their genre bending, really big, wide gestures in the kind of films that they're doing. And that comes out of his background as a novelist first. So he's had this amazing life. He's actually part of this kind of disappearing generation. He was born in 1954, year after the Korean War. And so he's also lived this like very dramatic trajectory of, you know, 20th and 21st century development, you know, in South Korea. So his movies really range through the kinds of traces of what that experience can be like for an entire population. He's so well respected in the industry. He was, he was appointed minister of culture under leftist president in 2003, because people in the industry, in all the cultural industries just looked up to him so much. But then he left after a year because he was like, oh no, I'm actually not a bureaucrat. I want to be an artist. And so yeah, he's just, he bridges also this kind of like different periods of Korean history and Korean art making, because he started off as part of this group of very socially conscious filmmakers who are making realist films after democratization in the eight late 80s. And so a lot of those people are gone now. So it's kind of amazing that his films, which are socially realist, which are kind of heavy, that might seem really niche, but he still makes films that excite people and get seen by a lot of folks. So that is just, he's a unicorn in so many ways. I, first of all, I just want to say, like sometimes someone says a phrase and go like, I'm going to dub that into my personal lecicon. You said moral coordinates. I'm going to borrow that and never going to credit you that I'm so sorry to tell you this. That's okay. Let's pivot to talking about this movie. Let's pivot to talking about possible love. Rad, could you briefly kind of describe the plot of this movie? Yeah. I mean, so the movie is about two couples. Okay. There's one couple that is working class and they had just kind of come out of this ordeal, which was a labor strike, right? So there's been, there was months of protests, lots of solidarity at these protests among the workers at this factory and their families. And it all accumulated to this kind of, this attack from the police, like a lot of the protesters being brutalized. So this couple is surviving that. And then the other couple is a wealthy couple who are producing a documentary about that labor strike and they get close to the working class couple. And so you have this relationship here that then, you know, becomes kind of transactional, maybe kind of predatory. And there's a relationship that is, of course, cutting across class lines. And so this movie does, in part, become like about the ethics of documentary. And in that way, it is in conversation without other movie. You can see everything. But I mean, so this one, I mean, it is approaching like kind of what's predatory about documentary filmmaking. But then it moves beyond that to look at, you know, the limitations of empathy, the limitations of allyship, the limitations of solidarity. And it's not just about the filmmaking and the tolerance of narrative, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, the thing is like, it's looking at solidarity not just not necessarily on the front lines, but also within these intimate prickly relationships, right? Within these friendships and within this, even the marriage. So, you know, that's what Li Changdong does, right? He drills deep, deep, deep, big ideas and he drills deep on kind of the human experience of that. Yeah. The idea of this being a very novelistic film, Michelle, it sort of rings true from the very first opening shot. And then just like every single scene throughout, I was really blown away by this movie. But I want to talk about the fact that I sent a part of this movie is the thing that Rad just outlined the idea that this protest was sort of being brutalized by the police. And then the fallout of that. If you're watching this film and your career and audience member, you might know the specific reference, a specific incident, the real incident happened. Can you just talk a little bit about that, but the real story behind that incident? Yeah, so there is a real life event that is being referenced in this movie. It's a strike that took place in 2009 at a company called Song Yong Motors. And some folks who are into Korean media might be familiar with this. If they looked up, you know, what was definitely being referenced in Squid Game. But the protagonist of that series is also a victim of this labor, labor action. Which, yeah, it's a post global financial crisis 2008 recession event in which this company is, I mean, they're suffering losses, but they also kind of cook their books a little bit in order to declare bankruptcy so that they can restructure and that involves laying off a third of their workforce. The thing is that organized labor is pretty strong in South Korea. And so there's a union that supports the workers to strike and to occupy the factory because this just cannot stand, you know, like this is a smaller town that relies on this, this source of employment and, you know, it's going to be devastating for the lives of the people involved. So there's so much kind of solidarity built up in the community around this sit-in, but then it gets brutally suppressed. I mean, so violently, not just by like kind of hired thugs that the company gets to harass these workers, but also riot police. So the government responds. And, you know, I should say it's a kind of conservative right wing government that's in power at the time. And so the scenes of brutal suppression and that you see in the film. film, they do reference actual events. So that's, you know, it's really the moral injury here is not just that laborers have so little power when they're the ones who are producing the value, but also that the government would come and their own government that's supposed to be protecting them, would treat them in this manner. And then afterwards, a lot of the workers are sued by the company and the police. So it's a government also coming after them, after the fact to take their wages, to make it impossible for them to get other employment. So what happens is that, you know, over 30 people die, many by suicide because of the piling debts, the fact that they're embroiled in these legal cases. So that's the kind of situation that you're watching. And yeah, it's, it's, it's a really landmark labor, labor kind of event because it did galvanize a lot of people to recognize why it's so important to have strong unions. And you cannot have this lopsided situation where the majority has no power. And then it's just corporations and government in bed with each other that are there to suppress. So you take an event like that, right? You take an event like that that sort of changes how a lot of people understand their relationship to labor, their relationship to government. That's a sort of a large cultural story. And then the way that you make that a novelization is you drill down on the very specific dynamics of who gets to tell that story and how that story is told. And it's observing like really, really fine details. And to that end, I want to play a clip and possible love. This is a scene where the wife of one of the layoff workers is talking to the documentary filmmaker about her outfit. So in that scene, the woman is saying to the documentary filmmaker, "Hey, maybe you shouldn't be wearing such expensive clothes while you're entering the people who've lost their jobs." Michelle, I want to talk about the, I know that you want to get into the freely nuanced ways of this movie, Explorers Class, because you've seen a bunch of reviews that take a look of this film in a relatively kind of binary way. What are you picking up? What are the things that you're seeing? And how do you see it? Yeah. I mean, the subtlety of that exchange, it's really hard to translate and a lot of that has to do with these amazing performances by the cast, which I know we don't have a lot of time to get into, but those actors are just incredible in their top of their game. So what's happening is that these two women, one of whom is the wife of a layoff worker and it's herself a factory worker, and the kind of wealthy, you know, just, hi, like Yadji, the filmmaker is, she's part of like, you know, she thinks of herself as part of this like arts class or a filmmaking class, but she's married to this very wealthy man. And they're opening up to each other, actually, in this moment that seems like a moment of direct confrontation of plenty of differences. It's like, Miyok is saying to Yadji, you know, can I just be honest with you? You know, like I, I don't know if you know this. It's like she's, she's stating these differences in the spirit of actually trying to create connection and to say, I'm helping you out, right? So Miyok is this, she's played by Chandoyan, who is like just her generations, like most amazing actress, and she maintains an openness despite all of the things that she is, she has struggled against and the kind of devastation that she's been through. And it's like the film, a whole film is asking, that's the possible love here, actually. It's like, isn't it possible to stay open to the world after you know how unjust it is? Well, and one of the really striking moments in the, in early part of the film is when the woman who's making the documentary says to her husband, you know, in order to make this film, you have to love your subjects. And really what you end up seeing in the film is a lot of circling of like, are you loving this person or are you projecting an identity onto them that is not necessarily there? Because she's often quite, quite often sort of romanticizing their property, romanticizing the ways that they've had to sort of navigate all these struggles. And when you think about this film, Brad, like, because you compared it earlier to you can see everything. I think there is a reckoning of what is the work that the camera can do in these moments? You know, like, and I think like this movie is kind of a, in some ways, an indictment, right? An indictment of like, listen, when you put a camera in the room, you complicate the relationships between these people. But when you think about this movie and the work that each young dong is doing here, how do you compare it to his other movies? Like, what, how does this movie stand out? Well, I mean, this movie, first of all, I mean, I think this is the first time he's ever made a movie about filmmaking, right? And that says something. I think, I mean, because I said before a lot of his other movies, there is some kind of real life experience that he has experienced, including the lots of a child that kind of anchors him to the worldviews of his previous movies. Specific emotions. Yeah. And like what he's navigating, whereas this movie, I mean, so he wasn't part of that labor strike. And he decided to, I mean, I think he wanted to make a movie about this earlier, but he didn't know how to approach it. So in some way, there's a self-interrogation about who am I in this story. And so, that immediately sets this movie apart again. And I also don't know that this movie is as kind of violent and heavy as some of his previous movies, right? So that's another thing. But when he, so then approaches this, when we talk about that comparison to you can see everything and this kind of notion of like a camera and the room complicating things. And setting up relationships that become transactional. And, you know, this is a movie where he is questioning and going back to what he always does, which he's just questioning human behavior and how human behavior adapts to different situations. And in this situation, I mean, it is questioning, you know, yes, you're approaching the filmmakers approaching this, certainly maybe with the best intentions as allies, but then you are also re-traumatizing. You are also exploiting. And so, what does the couple who has endured this? What are you really doing for them, because you're going to save them from this situation? What I think is interesting. And, you know. This is kind of a self-interrogation. Exactly. But I think, you know, Michelle, when Michelle said, like, you know, talking about how these incredible performances, right, which is, you know, it should say that the actress who plays Miyak was the star of Secret Sunshine, right? So she, no, actually, the husband is also a former Lee Chang-dong star. The performances are so incredible, because in the sense, in terms of looking at Miyak's character, like, she, I think, is aware that there's an aspect of her being exploited. And she's in some ways in it, you know, the transactional relationship goes to way. But, basically, yeah. Yeah. And she's actively being like, okay, well, like, you know, she's trying to put herself at an even level, maybe because of her own path and trying to, like, you know, rise up from her social class position. Yeah. So these performances are so nuanced that it's not, like, kind of, some simple, this is predatory or not. It gets really complicated and gets really prickly. Yeah. I could even say a lot more about, like, the comparisons to his previous movies, because I do think one thing that is very, very interesting, like, I mean, I think I came out of this movie more hopeful and comforted than any previous Lee Janggov movie, okay? Which is very interesting. And I think that's because, you know, this is ultimately a movie questioning solidarity. And at the end of the movie, I did feel a sense of solidarity, right? I don't know that I've ever come out of one of his movies like that. What I think is interesting in comparison to his previous movies is a lot of the reactions I've seen to this movie. People have been like, they were like, there's some people who are like, oh, it's not as ambiguous. He spells things out. Usually there's more ambiguity in his films. I'll circle back to that. What's some people say? Yeah. Some people say there's more ambiguity. And then meanwhile, a tiff, there was like a guy in the audience Q&A who was like, he complained to Lee Jangdong. Like, why is your movie end done such an abrupt, ambiguous note? And I walked out after that. But it's like, it's so interesting that some people see it as ambiguous. Some people don't. I think the people who don't see it as ambiguous and feel like it's spelled out. I think they're comparing it to Lee Jangdong's previous movie Burning, which was the much more elusive movie. That was a movie about a young man trying to exert some kind of control over the world in his world. And it gets into toxic male rage. I still don't know exactly what happened to that movie. Still love it. It is previous movies. They do kind of spell things out. They just end on a more haunting note. Whereas again, this one stands apart because it is so much more hopeful. In a world where the news feels bigger, louder and harder to make sense of, Canadians need more than headlines. Hi. I'm Karen C. Olden. I'm a reporter and host of the Big Story Podcast. From world shaping events to the everyday stories that spark debate, my team and I will explain what matters and why it matters to you. We're here to help you make sense of the news and give you the context you need for those kitchen table conversations, trusted, Canadian focused, curious. Listen to the Big Story wherever you get your podcasts. I'm curious about this, Michelle, because in a profile in the New Yorker, Lee Jangdong said that, quote, "Those of us who make films where the theater can't just go head to head with Netflix in zero some ways, we have to figure out some kind of way of symbiosis." I'm interested in that and the idea that he contextualizes in that way, because this is a film that is now out on Netflix. What do you think of his partnership with Netflix? Does that make it more likely to have a more hopeful note than a more ambiguous note for a film, for example? Totally. Well, okay. I'm not sure. I guess I haven't really considered the question of whether or not this Netflix partnership actually changed the content or his approach. I mean, yeah, reports do say that he had creative control that basically Netflix acknowledged his status as a synest and said, "Okay, but we're going to give you this financing." He couldn't get it from other sources. because all of the other production companies that are working in and film financing sources are really funneling money and just streaming into the kind of streaming series into more commercial things. So this is kind of his survival strategy. - I'm relieved this movie was made, you know? - Exactly. And so I think that so we can approach this question of Netflix in a similar way to like the content of the film not being about absolutes. I mean, this film, I agree, I left more hopeful, I felt like it expressed the possibility of connecting even across really stark differences. - Yeah. - And so we, yeah, it's kind of a movie for our moment. So the Netflix partnership is the same. - Okay, Michelle, I'm interested in the idea that this movie is the movie for the moment because I do think about like right now, at least I looked at Korean cinema for telling me something about the world that we live in that is actually quite explicit and quite clear. I think like Korean cinema makes class conversations much clearer than other forms of cinema do. So tell me about like you think the Oscar chances for a movie like this one. Are you anticipating the same kind of one, for example, for Parasite? - Mm-hmm. You know, I wonder, only because I think that in Hollywood, and you know, we, I think of the Oscars, is really kind of a Hollywood centered competition. I do sort of think that the subtlety is less what Korean cinema is known for. I mean, I will say that burning E-Tang-dong's previous film, and he waits a long time, it takes him a long time to make movies though. That was already back in 2018. It was also recognized for its power. And I think it really helped to like create the runway for Parasite to do so well just a year later in 2019. So perhaps there's a kind of, you know, just this national branding effect perhaps that people won't recognize its quality. But I, yeah, I guess I'm curious because it, this is a film that demands a lot from its viewer in terms of having the patience, having the attention span and the willingness to sit with it. - Yeah. - It's not gonna grab you in the way that like, you know, - It's two hours long, right? It's an ask of your attention. - Like a genre film does something different. - Yeah. - So, yeah. - Right, I got one minute, what about you? I mean, look like I think this is a movie that's too good for the Oscars. (laughing) What do you mean like that's, I mean, that's the bottom line. That's real, right? I mean, look, I'd love to see, I mean, some people are talking about that lead performance, you know, scoring an Oscar nomination. I would love that. But the people that are talking about it, it's almost like, let's try and see if we can manifest this. You know what's, let's make it happen. If we keep saying it's an Oscar-board or something. - The Oscar-board is against us. - But it's like the people that are saying it are the press is not Netflix because I don't see Netflix really putting their effort behind it. I feel like Netflix accidentally funded this movie in some way, 'cause it's like, 'cause I haven't mounted the campaign, you think, for the, yeah. - No, I mean, 'cause their focus seems to be La Bola Negra, which is the big, sweeping Spanish film and that's what they're contributing for, whereas this movie, I mean, this is the best movie Netflix has made since the Irishman. Of course, this is not the kind of movie that they make. You know what I mean? So it's almost like, they don't really, I don't get the sense that they know what they have and they're not gonna push this for that Oscar-board because they're all their chips are in that other movie that has more Amelia Perez vibes. - For the folks and Netflix who are watching this conversation, Radson plays begging you to just point a bit of money into promoting this movie and giving it the life that it deserves and all the award shows. But also, I think the idea of this movie being two for the Oscars, I take that point, actually. I go like, this is like a different kind of masterpiece. I really appreciate your time, you guys. It's been really wonderful. Thank you so much for doing this. - Thanks for having us. - Thank you. - Radson plays a freelance film critic in Toronto. You can find his work at the Global Mail on CTV and right here on commotion. Michelle Cho is a professor with the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto. Possible love is streaming now on Netflix. That's it for the show today. My name is Elimine Abdul-Mahmud. This show is called Commotion. We'll be back tomorrow. We'll see you then. (upbeat music) - For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca/podcasts.