By Hanna Rantala
VENICE, Sept 6 (Reuters) – South Korean director Lee Chang-dong returned to the big screen on Sunday after an eight-year hiatus with Venice Film Festival contender “Possible Love”, revisiting a divisive labour conflict that shook his home country.
Lee’s last film “Burning” was released in 2018 and he said the lengthy gap between films had allowed him to reflect on his responsibilities as a filmmaker.
“I promised that it wouldn’t take another eight years, but I was unable to keep that promise,” he told Reuters. “During that time, I was able to explore, more deeply and more profoundly than ever, the fundamental questions about what cinema is and what I can do through film.”
VIOLENT STRIKE CRACKDOWN
Inspired by real events, the film traces the consequences of mass layoffs at a major South Korean conglomerate in 2009, which sparked a prolonged strike and a violent police crackdown that left many workers traumatised.
“I thought that the incident was not a problem for one company, but an incident that sent a shockwave through the South Korean society,” the director said.
Lee said he had originally planned to make a film directly about the dispute more than a decade ago and even completed a screenplay, but abandoned the project after questioning whether it was necessary to fictionalise the workers’ experiences.
“There was already a great, honest and sincere documentary out there, so I wasn’t sure whether I really needed to dramatise their lives to tell their story,” he said.
Lee revived the project in 2024 when longtime collaborator Oh Jung-mi suggested combining the labour story with that of a fictional documentary filmmaker.
The movie follows two couples, played by Jeon Do-yeon, Sul Kyung-gu, Cho Yeo-jeong and Zo In-sung, whose lives intersect during the production of a film about the laid-off workers.
Jeon plays the wife of a former worker struggling with the fallout from the dispute, who carries the emotional weight of the family’s ordeal. “But she’s a passionate character with a very strong will, who tries to keep steering the family in a hopeful direction,” the actor told Reuters.
Zo, who plays the wealthy husband of the documentary maker, said the film’s focus on work and human dignity resonated in an age of rapid technological change.
“With the emergence of AI and the potential loss of the value of human labour, we must continue to discuss how to maintain human dignity,” he said.
Venice holds special significance for Lee, whose 2002 drama “Oasis” earned him the festival’s Silver Lion for best director. He said he hoped audiences would once again embrace a film that asks difficult questions.
“I hope the story shown in this film becomes an opportunity for more people to watch and understand the film, and to find their own answers to the questions the film raises,” he said.
“Possible Love”, which South Korea has nominated as its entry for next year’s Oscars, is one of 21 movies competing for Venice’s Golden Lion.
(Writing by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
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