Concrete Utopia

If George Orwell had had a career stint as a Korean estate agent, this is the kind of story he might have turned out.

It’s a fractious, blood-soaked drama about the will to survive that feels like “Earthquake” crossed with “Lord of the Flies.” What’s gripping is that you watch it and think, “If I were in this movie, what would I do?”

Smoothly shaping familiar genre tropes into a brutal study of class warfare and the stifling of pity, the director, Um Tae-hwa (who wrote the script with Lee Shin-ji), makes human kindness the first casualty of social disorder.

A myopic, tense dystopian thrillers go, Concrete Utopia reels us in, jolts and even shocks us and gets the viewer thinking, at least a little. Not every action film or disaster movie can make that claim.

It doesn’t pull any punches in its uncompromising portrayal of rising authoritarianism; it lands with greater impact than a more stereotypically crowd-pleasing disaster film.

Concrete Utopia is a polished disaster drama with a bleak and brutal view of human nature.

Overall, Concrete Utopia is more ambitious than its execution, but nonetheless sustains its suspense with an emotional journey into the depths of what scarcity can do to humanity.

Os filmes de catástrofe exploram eventos dramáticos e destrutivos que ameaçam a existência da humanidade ou do planeta. Esses filmes muitas vezes colocam os personagens em situações extremas, desafiando sua capacidade de sobrevivência e destacando o instinto humano básico de lutar pela vida. Não importa se os eventos foram naturais ou provocados pelo homem, o que importa mesmo é como estamos preparados para lidar com a situação. Aqui, por mais que o filme corte o ritmo com certos flashbacks, o domínio do espaço é esplendoroso. Toda um arquitetura de concreto destruída em imagens e em uma fotografia de encher os olhos. Um condomínio somente fica de pé, e claro será alvo de disputa entre os moradores "nativos" e os "estrangeiros". Antropologicamente é um filme rico para se discutir o outro, e quando resta apenas um espaço salubre em meio ao caos, o sentimento de pertencimento fica socialmente exacerbado. Não é falta de humanidade, é talvez o que temos de mais humanos. A partir deste cenário, a necessidade de organização e de um líder irão conduzir uma trama angustiante, que opta por fazer uso de humor em certos momentos, por mais violento e desesperador que algumas passagens possam ser. Gosto particularmente das atuações, por mais que o diretor Taehwa Um faça uso de caricaturas, seu domínio perante um vasto elenco é irrepreensível. O tom distópico, assim, soa muito mais próximo da verossimilhança ainda com certas forçadas de barra. Mesmo com "Parasita", o cinema sul-coreano tá sabendo entregar situações com uma pegada convincente. O sentimento de que pode brotar humanidade nos piores cenários, ou ao contrário, aflorar o que há de pior em nós, é tão familiar pós-pandemia de COVID que acompanhar os monstros deste filme e os seres humanos que se permitem atos de benevolência chega a ser muito satisfatório como retrato daquilo que verdadeiramente somos. Ao mesmo tempo que dependemos do outro, em situações extremas esse outro significa muito perigo e ameaça, cabe saber conviver com essa dualidade condenada pela busca à sobrevivência.

Desperate measures are taken to survive, morality and ethics set aside. Survival is the name

A Narrow World Lost in Madness: The Blinding Illusions of Concrete Utopia250127 (3.0)The world is surprisingly narrow, yet we still fail to see the light shining from just across the way. I can’t help but wonder how much more impactful this story could have been if it had been expanded into a trilogy like the original webtoon. The film centers on Mo Se-beom, a man who assumes the identity of "Kim Young-tak" after taking over the apartment and identity of a real estate fraudster. Abandoned by his family and left in debt after a string of failed businesses and a military career, he finds a twisted sense of purpose in leading the Hwang-gung Apartment complex. Alongside him is the young husband Min-seong, who becomes intoxicated by the validation he receives through violence and authority, much to the dismay of his nurse wife, Myeong-hwa. While the residents succumb to collective madness, labeling outsiders as "****," a lone cartoonist quietly resists by hiding the elderly and sharing food before ultimately choosing suicide, declaring that some things remain unforgivable even in a ruined **** tension escalates with the return of Hye-won, the girl from Room 903, who survived a personal hell only to find her home transformed into a cult-like fortress. She eventually reveals the truth about Se-beom's stolen identity to Myeong-hwa. The film strips away the facade of the apartment as a sanctuary; as Myeong-hwa later discovers, the place they fought so desperately to protect was actually considered one of the most insane shelters of all. The story concludes with a poignant realization of the human will to survive: "Can I just live here?" "Why even ask? If you’re alive, you just live." It is a haunting reflection on the husband who died struggling within that madness, unaware that a simpler, kinder existence was possible just outside those concrete walls.

'Concrete Utopia,' about a group of earthquake survivors in Seoul organizing within an apartment complex to create a new order, develops a metaphor about class struggle in this disaster film. Unfortunately, its overused discourse prevents it from transcending into something more. Far from the brilliance of something like 'Parasite,' the film is too obvious in its intentions, not to mention the long duration works against it. Two more compelling works with a similar premise come to mind: 'High Rise,' with its acidic social satire, and 'Snowpiercer,” brutal and infinitely more exciting. Nevertheless, some passages bring us closer to the desperation and horror of reorganizing a small society amid chaos, death, and uncertainty.

When everything falls apart, it’s hard to know what will happen, especially in relations between survivors. Will mankind pull together to promote the uncertain continuation of the species, or is it a case of every man for himself? In this South Korean disaster film about what happens when a massive (and unexplained, not to mention highly improbable) earthquake destroys all of Seoul (and beyond apparently), except for one high-rise apartment building whose residents must decide whether to save only themselves or attempt to help displaced outsiders, despite a crucial lack of resources. What follows is essentially an apocalyptic retelling of The Lord of the Flies, with occasional back story flashes in the vein of television’s Lost. However, the film’s modestly engaging psychological thriller aspects aside, much of the narrative consists of a string of predictable (and not especially original) episodic incidents, most of which consist of various factions battling one another to become the prevailing alpha dogs. It’s not something we haven’t already seen many times before. What’s more, there’s precious little in the script to make viewers want to care about these people, primarily because of its tepid character development and an overreliance on recurring conflict (yawn). Add to that obvious and heavy-handed stabs at metaphorical geopolitical symbolism, erratic shifts in overall tone (particularly in the film’s first half), and a handful of feeble attempts at comic relief, and you’ve got a picture in need of serious retooling. It’s indeed puzzling to see the many accolades that have been so generously lavished on writer-director Tae-hwa Eom’s third feature outing in light of the project’s pervasive failings. But, beyond its imposing special effects and an impressive production design, there’s not much here to write home about. Wait for this one to come to home media if you’re really interested in sitting through this overlong slog.