South Korea’s Focus

Scenes of class conflict: SOUTH KOREA’S FOCUS

In the last few years South Korea’s cinema stood out as one of the most lucid observers of contemporary capitalism’s transformations, capable of combining popular stories and critical views. This is demonstrated by the success of  Joon-ho’s Parasite, alongside the diverse production that, from hallyu as the turn of two millenniums to the present, has often focused on the social divide of an increasingly unequal society driven to exasperation by competition. This section of Job Film Days presents a selection of recent titles that examine the world of work, the new forms of precarity  and the social fractures caused by neoliberalism, returning a complex and often ruthless portrait of Korean society. 

Between urban hyper-competitive environments and invisible suburbs, between individual ambitions and systems that crush any possibility of social mobility, the featured films on the program display characters on the edge, forced to continuously negotiate their own material and sentimental survival. The result is a cinema capable of crossing genres – from social realism to thrillers to black comedy – without ever sacrificing to a strong political tension. 

In a global context marked by increasingly pronounced inequalities, the South Korean perspective proves particularly effective in conveying the contradictions of the present: a narrative workshop where work is not only the main theme, is also a device through which it is possible to read the power relationships, the familiar dynamics and the forms of alienation that run through our society.