TIFF 2026 (Part 3)

So the first film we'll be talking about is Possible Love by Li Chengdong.

I don't know if you've seen any of Li Chengdong's other films before.

His movie Burning back in like 2018 was pretty critically adored.

I've since gone back and watched Poetry and Secret Sunshine by him too.

He's definitely a filmmaker I admire a lot.

But this is a movie that is about two couples in Korea.

One is extremely working class.

It's a man who had been working for a factory and went on strike and was laid off.

And his wife, who is kind of trying to bring him back to life.

You know, he's very depressed and she's very much trying to get all of this out in the open.

And then another where there's a woman who's a documentary filmmaker who wants to make a film about labor in Korea and the issues that factory workers are having.

And she is largely bankrolled by her nebulously wealthy tech and finance adjacent husband.

And this is kind of a... a movie about their interactions about the documentary that she's making and then over time how like the two couples try to relate to each other and maybe the the limits of their ability to do so you know you could kind of think of this as like the parasite for lee chang dong but i think it's way more complicated and different than parasite like yeah So first of all, I love this movie.

It's the kind of movie I liked a lot when I watched it, and then I couldn't stop thinking about it for the days afterwards.

I think it does a really good job of just unpacking all of these different characters and kind of the layers beneath their personas.

I think this is really about who are you when you strip away all of the niceties and all the things you try to project out into the world? How do you show up for other people? What do you want deep down? Can you change your classes? Can you change your circumstance? Can you really relate to each other? Or are you always going to be using people? I think this movie gets way more interesting as it goes along.

Like it starts by being very kind of dialogue heavy.

Here are the characters.

Here's the documentary being made.

Here's what they're working with.

And over time, it starts to like strip that away.

And it becomes way more about that.

striking visual or nonverbal moments between characters where they kind of like express how they're really feeling and how they're hurting or lost or angry.

And I don't want to spoil it, but they're just like a few scenes here, especially one taking place in the water late in the movie that I feel like is just among the most memorable scenes of the year.

for me and it just i don't know there's a lot of power and like a lot of really cool stuff to chew on so this quickly rose to being like a movie i liked a lot to being my favorite of the festival and i feel like i'm gonna like it even more when i watch it again but it is a slow burn how did you feel about possible love