Venice: Lee Chang-dong's Oscar submission "Possible Love"

Elisa Giudici reporting from Venice

POSSIBLE LOVE

It took Lee Chang-dong more than ten years to write Possible Love, after the horrifying police repression of laid-off SsangYong Motor workers in 2009 made him want to tackle the way inequality in Korean society is built around work, and around the pride or shame attached to having or losing a good job. After seeing the result, it is difficult not to marvel that it took him only ten years to write one of the most flawless and powerful films of the last decade. Every scene across its 164-minute running time works like an instrument in a concert, sometimes with almost diabolical precision, and as an homage to Kieślowski’s Dekalog (to which it is dedicated) and similarly intent on encompassing both the moral dilemmas of ordinary life and the capitalist structures surrounding them...

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Coming Very Soon: Oscar Submissions "Burning" and "Border"

NYFF/TIFF screenings from Nathaniel R

"My what lovely posters!" he said, as he struggled to decide how to review two pictures that are best seen cold, knowing as little as possible. "But people don't buy tickets / get excited about movies without knowing something," he reasoned with himself about reviewing both South Korea and Sweden's Oscar submissions which are opening in US theaters very soon.

"Okay, okay," the purist in him, responded. "I'll say a little something about each but only if I can limit my discussion to the posters! People absolutely shouldn't watch the trailers." "Deal" his practical self muttered rolling his eyes, having been through this existential crisis of movie blogging numerous times. "Proceed..."

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