While South Korea’s “Concrete Utopia” solidly stands as an epic disaster film, it couldn’t be farther from Hollywood’s ‘70s cycle of escapist hits like “The Poseidon Adventure” and “The Towering Inferno.”
“Concrete,” South Korea’s selection for the Best International Feature Academy Award, begins with a nasty earthquake that turns to rubble a city’s many, identical high-rise apartment towers – all except one.
It’s winter, the survivors are cold, hungry, desperate – and no rescue teams, no ambulances appear. The residents of the one surviving building, which is minus water or power, realize that as homeless survivors plea for shelter inside, they must make life or death decisions.
They elect a leader (played by “Squid Game” star Lee Byung-hun) whose violent history is only gradually revealed – and who immediately secures control. Death and violence ensue.
“I was always interested in Korean apartment buildings,” the director and co-writer Um Tae-hwa explained through an interpreter in a virtual press conference. “I wondered why they were all built in the same form and keep getting demolished. And why rather than being for somebody’s home, it’s valuable as an asset. I came across ‘Pleasant Outcast’ by Kim Soong-Nyung where it asks, ‘If everything collapses and only one building remains, what happens?’ It’s a great story for Korean society.”
One that pinpoints the building’s class structure — who are the owners, who are the renters and who has the power?
Lee notes that, “After the Korean War, South Korea rapidly developed, partly because there was this sense of community and it was this strong sense of community that helped this develop. On the other hand because of the collectivism, they restrain your individuality. And because you’re in small space this comparison culture of renters versus owners has developed as a social class problem.”
As the ambiguous elected leader, Lee does bad things but is not necessarily bad. “He’s lost everything — his family, his home. He had no interest to go on and in this depressing circumstance he gains power and slowly transforms.
“It was interesting as an actor to play this role. It was built in conversations with the director. As he gained power when he heard that the world has been reset, it gives him confidence to restart his life and see what can he do for residents of the apartment building.
“But at some point he becomes obsessed with power itself and uses his power not for good. But you can’t really say it’s all his fault and that subtlety was interesting for me. I want the audience to ask: Is he a good or an evil character with the choices he has to make.”
“Concrete Utopia” opens Friday