Submitted by Korea: No Other Choice

Yoo Man-su might just become known as the most iconic paper industry executive in cinema history. Of course, there aren’t many movies about the paper industry. It also helps that Yoo is literally killing his competition. Amongst job-seekers, Yoo becomes unusually proactive in Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice, Korea’s shortlisted International Oscar submission, which opens Christmas Day in New York.

Yoo worked his way up to become a highly paid executive at his paper company, only to be laid off when it is bought out by an American firm. Unfortunately, there has been a lot of this going around, so whenever a paper exec job comes up, he must compete with an army of applicants.

Although he sometimes takes demeaning temp work, Yoo is on the verge of losing his family’s home. The prospect is particularly painful to Yoo, because he grew up there as a child and worked diligently to renovate into his own private paradise. Plus, he suspects his dental hygienist wife’s boss might take advantage of his humiliation to seduce her.

However, Yoo refuses to take his situation laying down. Placing fake recruitment ads, Yoo determines which possible candidates for future openings would have the most competitive qualifications compared to himself. Then, he starts stalking and killing them. However, that is a decidedly messy undertaking for a middle-aged paper exec like Yoo.

Based on Donald E. Westlake’s novel The Ax, which was previously adapted for film by Costa-Gavras, Park’s No Other Choice, reflects the attitudes and underlying ideologies of recent Korean productions like Parasite and Squid Game. It makes similarly bitterly caustic points regarding economic uncertainty and social insecurity. However, those comparable works maintain a vice-like hold on viewers.

In contrast, Park and co-screenwriters Lee Kyoung-mi and Don McKellar too often allow the message to overwhelm the storytelling. For long stretches, Park belabors his takeaways, very definitely at the expense of tension and suspense. (Perhaps tellingly, the ideologically-charged Gavras family supported the production of Park’s adaptation as producers.)

U.S. Premiere: Godard’s Made in U.S.A.

A film set in that provincial French village of Atlantic City and featuring an appearance by Marianne Faithful singing “As Tears Go By,” in between droning voice-overs of orthodox Marxism could only come from one filmmaker: French auteur Jean-Luc Godard. Infamous as much for the circumstances surrounding it as it’s on-screen story, Godard’s Made in U.S.A. (1967, trailer here), finally makes its belated official American debut today at the Film Forum in New York.

Due to the peculiarities of his financial situation, producer Georges de Beauregard needed to put a film into production quickly (and cheaply). Although Godard was already filming Two or Three Things I Know About Her at the time, he was game for the challenge. Quickly settling on Donald E. Westlake’s novel The Jugger (written under the Richard Stark pseudonym) as his source material, Godard then proceeded to radically reshape it into a satirical allegory about the disappearance of Moroccan Marxist Ben Barka. However, Godard and the cash-strapped Beauregard never properly cleared the rights to Westlake’s novel, which is why Made in U.S.A. is only now receiving a proper American release. Obviously, the rights issues must have been settled, since the film is here and Westlake himself was co-operating the publicity efforts for its release, until his recent death on New Year’s Eve night.

Made actually has a describable linear plot, that borrows heavily from the conventions of film noir. However, Godard plays so many of his signature cinematic games and injects such strident (and dated) politics, it is probably not a good starter film for Godard neophytes (Breathless or Contempt would work better for that). However, Godard enthusiasts will likely have a ball watching Godard be Godard.

Ostensibly, Made follows Paula Nelson, played by Godard’s muse and ex-wife Anna Karina, as she hunts for the murderer of her more-or-less former lover, Georges Politzer, a Marxist journalist. In the course of her investigation, she encounters a writer named David Goodis, a secret policeman named Widmark (Christian name Paul, but often mistaken as Richard, in a reference Godard may not necessarily have been making), and two co-conspirators, Richard Nixon and Robert MacNamara (those were deliberate).

While the events of Made unfold in an orderly sequence, looking for logic in the film, especially in terms of motivation, would be a frustrating endeavor. There is always an inescapable randomness in Godard’s universe. There is plenty of meaning though. The didactic politics are inescapable, suggesting anyone slightly to the right of Frantz Fanon is an immoral, illiterate thug. The relationship between Nelson and Politzer also takes on additional layers of meaning given the history between Karina and Godard (who supplies the late Politizer’s disembodied voice).

Karina gives a surprisingly sensitive performance, despite the eccentricity around her and the often strident dialogue. She has a truly poignant screen presence, heightened by Godard’s effective use of music by Schuman and Beethoven. Exhibiting all of Godard’s greatest strengths and idiosyncrasies, Made is never dull but it can be exasperating. It is unquestionably an important film in his canon, but not exactly a full masterpiece in its own right. Still, Made’s premiere American run, starting today at the Film Forum, is a legitimate cinematic event.

Photo credit: Rialto Pictures. Playing 1/9-1/22.