No other choice (2025) than to meander through to my thoughts and feelings
I find it difficult, often, to write (well really to think) about art. Beyond “I liked it” (etc) I feel inadequate to the task of articulating my reactions to the work. At best I can provide Marxist/sociological readings, I suppose. But I do think that such approaches, while interesting – as I am a political animal – are inadequate to get to the “point” of art.
So too, even with political art. No other choice (2025) is a deeply political movie, essentially showing the ideal capitalist subject - a worker who’s fully internalised the logic of individualised market competition, to the point where he kills his labour-market opponents, and victorious gets a job (which might be automated away soon enough). But, of course, a lot of art with good politics is bad (often in a very specific-to-politics way), while this film is in fact very good – even as it is very forthright about its politics. But what else do I have to say?
I am making things difficult for myself, here. I am not (truly!) well-versed in the language of film. I am more a reader than a visual person, ultimately (or so I tend to think). I am not sure I have more to say than I hat I think the movie is “beautifully shot” and other short phrases that can fit on a poster.
What about the writing, then? Well, I think it’s fair to say you can’t judge these works only for their parts – the narrative happens as much in the visuals as in the words (or so they say). But I can, I guess speak to the craft – there is an economy to the writing, and part of that economy is showing class relations plainly and without being inelegantly heavy-handed about it (politics again). (here I can insert a point about language: since I don’t speak Korean, I can’t actually speak to the sentence-level quality of the writing! Is the language particularly beautiful? I wouldn’t know. But this too is just base technicalities.)
As I tend to do, maybe the problem is I’m erasing myself here. It is so much easier to stay on the side of facts and craft, than to bring my own (thoughts and) feelings into the equation. If you’re trying to judge art, is it really possible to say anything meaningful without – somehow – bringing yourself as an individual into the equation? Probably not. Aesthetic judgement isn’t, can’t, be fully objective, after all.
I suppose there is not progressing out of my mental state without discomfort or pain. So,
What do I feel? Well. It feels nice to have my own political worldview affirmed on the big screen – capitalism, the labour market, is evil, alienating and murderous. To me this movie appears as a piece of agitation – if ever so beautiful. A tragedy, but as many bourgeois and conservative tragedies affirm the extant order – e.g. you should reproduce and have children, not be a faggot/dyke who has gay sex and then gets murdered by your evil (satanic) partner – so this tragedy affirms a communist position, opposition to class society. And that feels… good?
That said, I do feel I run the risk here of projecting my own politics onto something that doesn’t actually match that pattern. How does a liberal parse this film? Maybe quite differently (answers on a postcard/letterboxd). Certainly not as an affirmation of their own communist views, which they don’t have. Maybe they only “see” the personal drama – which could carre the film on its own – but I will confess not seeing Society at play here sounds crazy, to me. But it’s been known to happen. (I am assuming a political intent, here, which could be wrong – sometimes the most radical politics happens behind the backs of the creators)
Does a film fail if the politics is missed by some? (many?) I don’t think so… Even the most agitator piece of art is still art, even if it doesn’t succeed in its political agitation. And you can’t force people to read how you want, etc. (This is pretty basic, I think…) Some people don’t at all parse Disco Elysium’s politics.
I am straying from myself again. I sometimes fear my political self is a hindrance to properly parsing art. Does politics erase aesthetics? Say it ain’t so.
Well, probably not, but it’s easy to lose myself in sociology to the detriment of beauty; I do maybe think that this is a me (and my psyche) problem – politics is safe, more “direct” feelings not so much. That said, the affirmation of a worldview is also something that creates feelings. And I do see this film as a tragedy – the march of capital will crush the protagonist once again, even after he has brought himself to the most traitorous and egoistical depths, just to be in the warm embrace of the factory. All of it was pointless (and could be otherwise). And that’s… sad? And also, anger..? He could, clearly, have acted otherwise (despite the movie’s title), at many points. Maybe there’s a point about agency, here? Just as capital could have acted otherwise, so too could he have entered into class solidarity, instead of pure egoism centred on himself and his bourgeois family unit. No-one, not even the force of economic relations, has forced him to murder. (and yet, this is a logic the “system” makes it easy to follow.)
So it’s a movie about the structure-agency problem? Well. You could say that. But I remain in the, ahem, feeling that reducing art to political-theoretical questions is a bit crude. On the other hand – people do say Literature is about exploring “the human condition” or something – and politics is part of that. And communism is the most political, the most human, politics.
Well, I guess I can only (indeed I have no other choice but to) say it’s a good piece of art; unlike say R.F. Kuang’s Babel, it doesn’t flatten the individuality and complexity of its characters in a relentless quest to be clear about its politics. Instead the personal struggles of the characters come as much to life as the politics of their context. But – and I do think this is maybe pathological – I guess I can only say I don’t have as much to say about that, ora about visual language, as I do about communism.