Director Lee Chang Dong on the Ethics of the Camera in Possible Love
South Korean director Lee Chang Dong tells The Verge about his latest film, Possible Love, which is inspired by 2009 layoffs at a Korean conglomerate. He discusses the ethics of the camera, his collaboration with the screenwriter and working with Netflix.
South Korean filmmaker Lee Chang Dong spoke with the news site The Verge about his seventh feature, Possible Love. The interview took place during his trip to New York, was conducted in Korean and was translated into English for publication. The film is inspired by real events from 2009, when a Korean conglomerate dismissed a third of its staff, or 2,600 employees, and many of those let go later died by suicide.
Rather than depicting the labor dispute itself, the film follows its characters in the aftermath. It opens with the epigraph "Thou shall not covet," and its characters long for one another's jobs, designer clothes, spouses and social standing. Mi-ok (Jeon Do-Yeon) is the wife of laid-off Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu). At a funeral they meet documentary filmmaker Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong) and her wealthy husband Sang-woo (Zo In-sung).
The ethics of the camera
Lee says the film's questions about portraying another person's story and pain concern the ethics of the camera. In his view, whoever holds a camera gains power. Directors, reporters and documentarians no longer belong to the world of those they film, even if they come from a lower class, and they face a choice between recording someone's suffering and stepping away.
He explains that Ye-ji wants to capture vanishing laborers and the value of their work, yet also treats their lives as material for her own film. Mi-ok, meanwhile, hopes the camera might help heal her husband's trauma.
Background, collaboration and Netflix
Lee grew up in Daegu, a city often described as the heartland of Korean conservatism. His political awareness took shape in 1980, when he joined protests against the Chun Doo-hwan regime. The screenplay was written with Oh Jung-mi, a former student he met at the Korea National University of Arts.
During production, Lee says, investor Netflix never interfered or gave unsolicited notes. The film opened in select US theaters on October 23 and will stream globally on Netflix on November 6.
