No Other Choice
Hit me harddddd. As somebody who since graduating has been made redundant twice due to very ephemeral reasons, and since has thought A LOT about the plague that is capitalism and corporations.
Unsure I'm able to unpack this film on a single viewing. There's so much going on in here that it feels silly to make an assessment after only seeing it once; it has more going on than most films.
It's at once thrilling, funny, light and breezy. It's a romp that I struggle to see anybody not enjoying, but the undercurrent of this whole story is so deeply sad, and the film never lets that go. It's an absurd situation rooted so strongly in feelings, emotions and situations that are too relatable - and only becoming more so.
The film is both directly and indirectly tackling the forcing of AI into every part of our lives. Sure, in the film, job losses are due to the introduction of automation into their industry, but this permeates and ripples into every aspect of our lives - because for better or worse, work has become many people's lives.
With AI being introduced, not only are real humans losing livelihoods and meaning to machines, but those left are losing humanity surrounding them. These inventions, meant to be tools to assist workers, are instead becoming workers themselves.
The film interrogates this further though by making our character’s motivations and goals intangible. He wants back into this life he had, but why? He actually isn't able to verbalise this until he hears somebody else verbalise why. He becomes machine-like himself in his responses.
Why is he so hell-bent on getting back to the life he knew? Was his life that fulfilling and gratifying, or is the alternative of changing path and direction, doing something unknown, in a world that likes people to fit into moulds, more scary? Is having no goal, no thirst and need to grind his life away harder than having a goal he doesn't really care for?
Is there fulfilment he could find in opening a café, in changing his path, or will this invalidate his life that came before him? The chains of capitalism shackle him to his job, and he's unable to see life without it.
One of many powerful images in the film is the idea of a hug at the beginning of the film. We see him embrace in a hug with his family. He has it all: a good house, a good family, good food, love, all of the things that he should desire in our capitalist society. This contrasts so starkly with the hug towards the end of the movie that feels devoid of the things that make it naturalistic and real.
He may have got his job back, but what cost? He will spend his days in this factory, which is stark and barren and devoid of humanity. Where, meanwhile, at home, he's missing out on love, people, and music. And yeah, he's happy, or he's chosen to buy into the false promise of this happiness
There's just copious amounts of layers to this film. The idea that capitalism breeds people who are willing to throw other people under the bus just to serve their greater goals and ambitions. Our main character actually feels subhuman before all of the things he does.
This is to mention nothing of the technical work that is on display here. You will not find any better editing in a film. Park-Chan Wook is one of the most creative filmmakers working today and is enhancing and changing the medium and using it in dramatically different ways to other contemporaries. Wook's films really stand out due ot the modernity of it. Many directors have came out and said that they are unwilling to tell stories in modern times because they don't want to or they can't see a way in, and yet his work tells a thoroughly modern story through a thoroughly modern setting, and I think it just hits all that deeper. Gosh, yeah, what a movie insane that it has been snubbed for all of the awards shows.