Lee Chang Dong ponders the ethics of the camera
Lee Chang Dong's seventh feature film, Possible Love, is inspired by true events from 2009, when a Korean conglomerate fired a third of its staff - 2,600 employees - after which many died by suicide. Possible Love is the latest in a long line of Lee movies that engage with themes of class or labor or religion or compressed modernity, that uniquely Korean affliction, without feeling didactic. A different kind of…
Key points
- Lee Chang Dong's seventh feature, Possible Love, draws on the 2009 firing of 2,600 employees by a Korean conglomerate and the suicides that followed.
- The film opens with the epigraph "Thou shall not covet" and follows characters in the aftermath of the labor struggle rather than during it.
- Lee said Netflix, as investor, never interfered with his work and guaranteed his independence as a director.
Lee Chang Dong's seventh feature film, Possible Love, takes its inspiration from events in 2009, when a Korean conglomerate fired 2,600 employees, a third of its staff, and many later died by suicide. Rather than depicting the heat of the labor struggle, the film follows its characters in the murkier aftermath.
The story opens with the epigraph "Thou shall not covet" and centers on people who do covet: each other's jobs, designer clothes, spouses and position. Mi-ok, played by Jeon Do-Yeon, is the long-suffering wife of laid-off worker Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu). At a colleague's funeral, the couple meet documentary filmmaker Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong) and her rich husband Sang-woo (Zo In-sung).
The ethics of the camera
Speaking to The Verge in New York, Lee said the film asks how one person can portray another's story and pain, what position the teller occupies and how much distance to keep. He linked these questions to a conversation years ago in which Bong Joon Ho, before making Mother, said he was wrestling with whether he had the right to portray a person's pain.
Lee said the moment you hold a camera you have power, and the camera operates according to that power. Filmmakers, he said, belong neither to the world of their subjects nor to the side of capital, but sit in the middle in a neutral or perhaps cowardly position.
The moment you hold a camera you have power, and the camera operates according to that power.
— Lee Chang Dong
Working with Netflix
Lee said Netflix, as the film's investor, never interfered or offered unsolicited notes from pre-production through post-production, and that it guaranteed his independence as a director. He added that he likely would not have received the same help with the Oscar campaign without the company.
Possible Love opened in select US theaters on October 23rd and will be available on Netflix globally on November 6th.
