이민지
| 2026-09-22 14:44:46
By Lee Minji
SEOUL, Sept. 22 (Yonhap) -- Korean auteur Lee Chang-dong is known for his grounded yet delicate portrayal of ordinary people, gradually unveiling them through the various layers that construct them rather than taking the easier way of labeling them.
The profound approach is epitomized in his Venice-winning masterpiece "Possible Love," his first feature in eight years since "Burning" (2018), which follows the lives of two married couples whose lives become intertwined in a way they had not imagined.
Their encounter takes place at a funeral for a laid-off worker who has taken his own life. The deceased is a former colleague of Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu), who had gone on strike against a mass layoff only to be brutally suppressed by police.
The traumatic experience still haunts Ho-seok, both mentally and physically, and as his wife Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon) gently reminds him not to drink alcohol, Ho-seok erupts into a fit of anger upon seeing documentary director Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong) filming their conversation.
Meanwhile, as Mi-ok leaves the scene to get some fresh air, she runs into Ye-ji's husband, Sang-woo (Zo In-sung), as she searches for a loose wedding ring that escaped her finger. Unlike her brusque husband, Sang-woo appears tall, handsome and kind, as he moves his car to help her find the ring.
Following this encounter, Ye-ji is set on making Ho-seok the face of her documentary -- he has a sad face that only one person can have in the country, she tells Sang-woo -- and befriends Mi-ok, who seems more willing to speak on camera about the strike than her taciturn husband.
As their friendship deepens, Ye-ji and Sang-woo invite Mi-ok, Ho-seok and their young son Cheol to their fancy seaside home. Ho-seok, who first appears reluctant, eventually agrees to join them and even giving an interview on his experience.
But what seemed like a relaxed vacation at the picture-perfect estate -- which Mi-ok marvels at, describing it as a house that appears in a novel (to which Ho-seok responds: you don't read novels) -- sours in an unexpected direction as hidden desires and emotions surface.
At two hours and 44 minutes, "Possible Love" is not an easy watch. But Lee densely builds up the strength of the story in its nearly 3-hour run, weaving together unlikely themes, such as economic disparity, belonging and the moral boundary between a filmmaker and a subject.
The backbone of this process is the characters, whom Lee neither portrays in an obvious way nor turns them into subjects of mockery, while he does bring in moments of raw humor, such as when Mi-ok belts out an emotional trot song, to which Sang-woo plays the clarinet.
While Mi-ok is a working class mother who envies Ye-ji's luxury backpack and innocently raves about how much she adored Steve Jobs and how Sang-woo resembles him, she also has the dignity to tell Ye-ji that her stylish outfits are inappropriate for interacting with laid-off workers and their families. This side of Mi-ok comes to the fore in a symbolic seaside scene involving Sang-woo.
Sang-woo seems like a confident and compassionate person but the unseen hierarchy of power, deeply ingrained in his mind, is hinted by how he used to use a whistle as a child to call the family butler's son or how he tells Ye-ji she is "different" from the working-class couple.
In this film about filmmaking, Lee spends considerable time on depicting the agony of the laid-off workers who are called "the dead," in comparison with "the living," workers who managed to survive the layoff. He gives voices and faces to the laid-off workers in a counseling session scene where they take turns speaking on their emotions.
This part -- which Lee said he could not give up despite the risk of it making the film feel longer and duller -- perhaps serves as an answer to the underlying question of how filmmakers should treat the subjects of their films and whether their attempt to "love" them is possible or not.
Following a flurry of events, Mi-ok and Ho-seok return to their small home. Mi-ok complains that their home smells of trash but Ho-seok gently comforts her, saying that a little fresh air will clear the smell.
The film ends with a plainly elegant scene in which the couple sit in the moonlight, as they had as courting lovers, and share soju, leaving viewers a lingering trail of questions on the magnitude of money and class, but also a glimmering sense of relief on the possibility of love.
"Possible Love" is set for release Wednesday. It will be available on Netflix from Nov. 6.
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