Lee Chang-dong takes his time. The lauded Korean filmmaker, approaching the 30th anniversary of his 1997 debut feature Green Fish, returns this fall with Possible Love, his first movie in eight years — the same gap between his previous two projects, 2010’s Poetry and 2018’s Burning. In his work, the wait proves not only worth it, but necessary — with character dynamics so richly, exactingly executed and the kind of narrative depth that can only come out of extensive marination. The stories sneak up on you. Like the man behind them, they’re in no rush and better for it.
Possible Love had been gestating for a decade. When Lee had the initial idea, he felt obsessed by it yet could not make the leap to actually bringing it to the screen. So far, so typical as far his methods go. But this subject posed a unique challenge to the director, one rooted in his own relationship to filmmaking — and once he figured it out, he made something unlike anything else in his oeuvre.
Cho Yeo-jeong.
The spark of Possible Love came out of a scandal of mass layoffs and their aftermath in Korea — specifically, violent state suppression of public protest. Lee saw the events foreshadowing a dark future for his country and maybe the world — changes in technology and wealth leaving workers behind. He wrote a screenplay, preemptively attaching two iconic Korean actors with whom he’s previously collaborated: Secret Sunshine’s Jeon Do-yeon and Peppermint Candy’s Sul Kyung-gu. They would reunite for this grand modern tragedy.
