[Edaily Starin YUN GI BACK Reporter] Even after the movie ends, the questions don’t easily fade away. Director Lee Chang-dong’s new film, *Possible Love*, asks what cinema can do in an era where human connections are fading and even the value of labor is being called into question. It constantly challenges the audience, asking how far it is justified to portray the suffering of others and whether it’s possible to use someone’s life as film material without exploiting it.

What’s interesting is that Director Lee Chang-dong does not exempt himself from these questions. Ye-ji (Jo Yeo-jeong), a documentary filmmaker, comes across as a character deeply imbued with Director Lee Chang-dong’s own creative struggles. As we follow Ye-ji as she attempts to capture the lives of laid-off workers on camera, we naturally confront the ethics of the creator standing behind the lens.
The fact that Director Lee Chang-dong once conceived a story about laid-off workers but later abandoned it is also closely tied to the film. He worried that, given the existence of documentaries that had already documented the suffering of real workers, adapting this story into a feature film might amount to yet another form of exploitation. The fact that he has revisited this story—which he had previously set aside—at a time when labor itself is in crisis makes the film’s central theme all the more poignant.
The character who bears this question most painfully is Ho-seok (Seol Kyung-gu). With his exceptionally sorrowful eyes, Seol Kyung-gu builds up the passage of time for a man who has fallen apart since his layoff. Rather than through grand gestures or exposition, he channels his lost self-esteem and anger into a stiff expression and a hesitant gaze. This makes the emotional outburst in the latter half all the more devastating. The failure, humiliation, and wounds he has long suppressed burst forth all at once. In particular, the fact that Ho-seok reveals his true feelings not to his wife Mi-ok but to Ye-ji’s camera once again intertwines with the film’s exploration of creativity and exploitation.

Mi-ok, played by Jeon Do-yeon, bears that weight in a different way. Though crushed by the weight of life, Mi-ok does not easily give in to self-pity. She may seem sharp and indifferent at times, but in a moment, she reaches out to others. In particular, the scene where she sings “All I Know Is Love” encapsulates the character of Mi-ok. Jeon Do-yeon completes the scene without exaggerating her emotions; rather, she performs with understated restraint. Thanks to this, the meaning of “Possible Love”—the question posed by the film—comes across even more clearly.
Sang-woo (Jo In-sung) is a character positioned at the exact opposite end of the spectrum. He swims, plays the clarinet, studies English and Taekwondo, and brews coffee. He does all sorts of things, yet he seems to be doing nothing at all. However, Sang-woo possesses the greatest power that governs the lives of the other characters in the film. This is the “personification of capital” as portrayed by Director Lee Chang-dong. It is an irony that the person furthest removed from labor dictates the lives of those who work. This is also why the scene where Sang-woo—who rarely reveals his true feelings—laughs in the bathroom leaves such a particularly chilling impression.

The scattered scenes from the beginning of the film converge into a single question as the story progresses. Why is the title “Possible Love”? Why does Mi-ok sing “All I Know Is Love”? Why does the film begin with the Ten Commandments’ “You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods”? These elements are connected one by one. Issues that initially seemed disparate—such as labor and class, capital and exploitation, and the ethics of the creator—ultimately converge into a story that asks whether people who have drifted apart can reconnect.
The final scene of the moon seems to offer the most delicate answer to this question. Ho-seok and Mi-ok sit side by side on a marble bench—still bearing the scars of failure and betrayal—drinking and gazing at the moon. Though their class, possessions, and life experiences differ, the moon shines the same for everyone. There is no grand reconciliation or perfect resolution. They simply gaze at the same thing. The “possible love” the film speaks of may, after all, begin with just such a small connection.
In the sense that it takes “layoff” as its starting point, it brings to mind Director Park Chan-wook’s *I Can’t Help It*. However, the approach is entirely different. While *I Can’t Help It* tackles the issues of layoffs and survival through black comedy and genre-driven thrills, *Possible Love* does not take the easy or quick route. Instead, it holds onto the questions for a long time and delves into them slowly. Even while looking at the same reality, the genre and rhythm create entirely different cinematic experiences.

Although some have called it difficult, it is not a film that demands you understand everything at once. You can interpret it as a story about labor, or as one about class. You can view it as a film about the ethics of the creator, or accept it as a love story about the process by which people reconnect with one another. It is a work from which you can take away as much as you understand and feel.
Above all, the question Director Lee Chang-dong posed in his acceptance speech runs through the entire film: In an era where connections between people are fading and the value of labor is becoming blurred, what can cinema do—and what must it do? *Possible Love* does not provide a ready-made answer. Instead, it invites the director, actors, and audience to search for the answer together, with the medium of film serving as a bridge.
And this question extends beyond the film itself. It is significant that Netflix—a streaming platform that once brought major changes to theaters and the Korean film ecosystem—has provided the production budget and creative environment for a film that would be difficult to make now that the domestic investment market has shrunk.
It is both paradoxical and intriguing that Netflix—a symbol of the streaming era—has embraced the latest work from a director who has championed the value of “legacy cinema” longer than anyone else. If *Possible Love* is a film that explores the possibility of connection between disparate beings within the story, then another form of connection has been forged outside the film as well. Perhaps this, too, can be seen as Netflix’s “possible love” for Korean cinema.