Aahana Swrup
Originally titled ‘Ganeunghan Sarang,’ ‘Possible Love’ presents a thought-provoking story about class dynamics, told through the unexpected collision of two couples who come from drastically different worlds. In the wake of massive layoffs, filmmaker Lee Ye-ji sets out to create a documentary that closely follows the impact of the corporate restructuring on everyday laborers. As a result, she inadvertently befriends Mi-ok, one of the subjects who has agreed to participate in her project.
The latter’s husband, Ho-seok, played a key role in the workers’ strike, but refuses to talk about it in the wake of its perceived failure. On the other hand, the filmmaker’s husband, Sang-woo, a successful businessman, supports her professional endeavor but fails to have a meaningful understanding of it. As the documentary brings these two couples together, they’re put through the paces of reckoning with their respective partnerships and their impact on their individual lives. Directed by Lee Chang-dong, the Korean film blends the realities of socio-economic disparities with the more personal exploration of love and commitment. In doing so, it delivers a tale that remains grounded in reality in a number of ways.
A Real-Life Strike in South Korea Inspired Possible Love
‘Possible Love’ charts a complex web of narratives that delve into various aspects of the lives of four distinct individuals and their shared collision. However, one specific event becomes pivotal in laying the foundation for this premise. In the film, a huge company named SP Heavy Industries has recently laid off a large portion of its workforce. This led to a massive response from the workers, who set up a general strike. Ultimately, this strike ended after the violent intervention of police forces. In the aftermath, Ho-seok, one of the protestors, is left to pick up the pieces of his life and move forward while the trauma of the event looms over him and his family like a dark cloud.
Ye-ji, a passionate filmmaker, sets out to raise awareness about the issue by filming a documentary, in which she wants the reluctant Ho-seok to take center stage. Given the timeline of events, the labor conflict that is at the center of the story remains a work of fiction molded in service of the film by director/writer Lee Chang-dong and his co-writer Jungmi Oh. Even so, while the strike lacks a biographical aspect, it retains a tangible real-life inspiration. While discussing the inspiration for his film, director Lee shared, “About a decade ago, there was a mass layoff at a large corporation, which led to a general strike, and the authorities responded in a forceful manner that greatly shocked Korean society — and I thought, I have to make this into a film.”
Although the impact of the real-life general strike stayed with the filmmaker in the aftermath, it wasn’t until his co-writer pitched the idea of introducing a documentary character into the storyline that the stars finally aligned for the project. “That’s how it became my story,” said Lee in a conversation with Netflix. “So it’s not just a story of a laborer, but because I’m a filmmaker, the two stories were brought together, and I started thinking, ah, I think I can tell this story now. Along with my self-consciousness, the self-consciousness of a filmmaker, I thought it could become an honest story. That’s how this film began.” Even though the filmmaker hasn’t explicitly shared which strike in South Korea’s history has an influence on ‘Possible Love,’ the 2009 SsangYong strike emerges as the likely suspect.
In May of 2009, workers at Ssangyong Motor went on a general strike to protest upcoming mass layoffs. As a plan to save the company from bankruptcy, the automaker proposed a program that would fire 36% of the workforce. The ensuing strike lasted for 77 days and invited police intervention, which Amnesty International alleged was unlawful. In turn, the Police flatly denied such allegations. Ultimately, a compromise between the union leaders and the company’s management ended the strike with 48% of the workforce retaining their jobs. The mechanics of the strike and its real-life visuals bear a striking resemblance to the on-screen depiction of the general strike involving the fictional SP Heavy Industries. Thus, even though the film presents a fictional storyline with similarly fictitious characters, its real-life influences shape the narrative’s sense of realism.
Possible Love Examines the Complexities of Class Disparity
While the labor strike informs the context of the storyline in ‘Possible Love,’ it’s the central characters and their unique dynamics with one another that inform the film’s overarching identity. The story circles around two couples with entirely different realities. Ho-seok and Mi-ok’s relationship is perpetually affected by the morbid impact of the general strike. On the other hand, the marital woes that loom over Ye-ji and Sang-woo stem from their differences in opinion and incompatible aspirations. Even though both of these couples are dealing with issues that are a result of a lack of mutual understanding, the origin and influence of their problems differ significantly.
The film expertly highlights how the couples’ varying socio-economic status plays a huge role in their individual conflicts. Additionally, the bonds that these couples form among themselves are also inherently governed by their economic differences. Even though Ye-ji spends the entirety of the film attempting to understand the plights of Ho-seok and Mi-ok, her unavoidable departure from their realities inevitably twists her interest into something degraded. Thus, instead of camaraderie, there is a sense of exploitation and intellectual gratification of the voyeuristic kind that becomes attached to their dynamics between the couples. As a result, the film retains a subliminal message about inescapable power dynamics born of socio-economic differences.
Read More: Is Anaesthesia Based on a True Story?
You must be logged in to post a comment.