A Korean film about wealth carving society in two. Who'd have thunk it? Lee Chang-dong starts on familiar ground: a laid-off worker and his wife cross paths with a documentary maker and her comfortable husband.
The first hour dragged while the script took its time clocking in. Then the threads started coming together, and I was hooked.
Lee trusts you to join the dots. The class divide is the front door to a far bigger house: the violence around a failed strike, trauma carried like a bad back, and what a man is meant to be once the job and the pride have both gone. Lee shoots it all with the patience of someone who knows you'll come round eventually.
Sul Kyung-gu anchors the film, his silences doing most of the talking, with an excellent cast around him. Emotionally, it kept me at arm's length, though its ideas are still rattling round my head. I'd sit through all 165 minutes again.
Worth the overtime. Possible Love? Probable payoff.