To me this is exactly what made the flood scene so powerful.
When watching the film the flood seems to almost interrupt the narrative flow, "what is this? this isn't what I'm interested in right now. Why do we need this, there's already enough going on for these people?" is your first reaction as a viewer
But that's how real tragedy unfolds, it completely interrupts the story you are telling yourself with something you would really prefer not to deal with but are not allowed to ignore.
Floods, or likewise layoffs, the death of an important family member, etc. never fit the narrative flow we have in our heads. They interrupt our story in a way we really don't want.
I recall years ago getting ready for an important business trip for early stage startup that I had just joined. I was packing when I got a call that a close family member on the other side of the country had died. It didn't fit with my plans, I was going to start a new company, I didn't have time for a funeral, for grieving. Can't we do this next week when I'm less busy?
Of course the next morning the flight I got on was not for a startup but for the funereal.
Tragedy and loss never fit out schedule, not only do they bring their own pain but they destroy everything else we were trying to balance in our lives. Really a brilliant way to convey this idea in film.
They mentioned it as an “aesthetic” choice on the part of the writer/director, but the linked video mentioned 4 people who had drowned in a flooded banjiha, and included an interview with a family who claimed to have narrowly escaped with their own lives.
Tragedy striking suddenly and seemingly irreversibly is a common feature of life in poverty; there is no art or artifice about it and (purely personally), it strikes me as naive interpreting it as a visual spectacle and not a visual representation of an underlying reality.
It's funny because we've been starting to see homeowners of larger houses where I live renovating their basement into a condo/shared living space of sorts then renting it out to younger generations of people who can't afford regular apartments or housing.
I'm fairly certain we're going to see an economic collapse on a larger global scale in the next decade and some governments' complacency on housing availability/affordability/etc. are going to be part of the blame.
"I want to move above ground where my children can see the skies, to a place that doesn't have the musty smell of a semi-basement, so we can live together in fresh air."
The only technical "solution" would be to build a barrier higher than the flood waters around the apartments, but thats not going to happen.
The familiar song of the NIMBY knows no borders. What an amazing statement. Younger people must be immiserated because older person has bills to pay. At least demographically speaking the young man in the video won't really need to wait 40 years to get an apartment above ground. Population of SK is believed to have peaked in 2020 and is now rapidly plunging, with total fertility now way below 1.0. They used to project peak population in 2035 but now they are projecting to lose 1 million by that year.
Edit: Sorry, the 1 million is according to the "medium" fertility projection but since reality is already far below the "low" scenario, the projection is for losing 3 million people by 2035.
- She was born into Japanese occupation and lived through WW2. Probably was malnourished growing up.
- Shes old enough to remember the Korean War and, almost assuredly had the front line go through her location (at one point only the city Busan held out). War is not good for young teenaged girls.
- After the war, she might have been one of the thousands of low income women that were prostituted off to the American army by the Korean state desperate for foreign capital to rebuild.
- She lived most her life under a pretty brutal dictatorship.
Korean women of her generation have lived through some of the most insane hardships. The toil of her generation built one of the richest export economies in the world while inheriting literally one of the most backwards and poor country ruled by dictators.
I think shes owed a small rental income to buy meds.
Isn't this a case against extreme urbanisation? The human density in a lot of cities are way too high.
Another are the ridiculous housing prices. Is it a bubble? Will it pop? Will it decrease in my lifetime?
Although the "happy" part is looking more and more unlikely.
Many commie nations in asia had nearly equally as bad, and sometime worse, "democratic" counterparts.
Until the korean war, north korea was actually richer.
South korea is absolutely a terrible place to live and has tons of corruption, it just looks good because its compared to its northern neighbor.
If north korea didn't exist I doubt south korea would receive more bad press like this.
Happiness = Reality - Expectations.
You control your own expectations.
Generally, the American Dream of a massive house + massive car + isolated lifestyle away from friends and family is a/ not scalable to worldwide scale, b/ not the universal mode to happiness
What is the big deal about happiness anyways? I have been happy, I have been miserable. The taste of truth and justice is sweeter. Not seeing your loved ones suffer and your precious time on earth wasted away are better goals than being happy for the sake of feeling good.
At least 50% of one's mood comes genetics. There's nothing one can do about that. There's just not.
Almost everyone knows this. You can have one child that is happy and cooing and very social at 3 or 6 months old, and another child that cries, doesn't like people, and unhappy. We all know this. It's not like the infant is choosing to be happy or sad at 3 months old. It's genetics. For sure.
One could say that since 50% is genetic, that 50% of a mood is under one's control. Well, having 100% happy genes plus a good happy outlook on life and choices is a LOT easier than only 50% unhappy. Because no matter what, even if a 50% "not good mood person" tries to be happy, there is always that 50% "not happy" part that is always there. Waiting. Looking for it's chance to move in. Happy people don't have that.
Also, on another note, there are all kinds of mood disorders. Major depressive disorder (MDD), Bipolar I, Bipolar II, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), Cyclothymic disorder, Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, Persistent depressive disorder, Premenstrual dysphoric disorder. These types of mood disorders follow one through life, too. Can be ok for a while, then boom, depressed and you can't help it.
There is no way that people with mood disorders can choose to be happy. Just no way.
>the most miserable people in the world are obscenely wealthy.
I am personally convinced that all the studies that show that obscenely wealthy people are miserable is that all the studies were paid for by billionaires and published by their astroturf groups. These "studies" are published in the media that the billionaires own, saying how miserable they are. Because that will help prevent the actual miserable poor people from rising up and doing a French Revolution gullontine number on the very rich.
Mr. Billionarie says: "You think you have it bad, Mr. Working-two-jobs-at-federal-minimum-wage-of-$7.50?? You got it great! I have BILLIONS of dollars and boy am I miserable. I mean, I KNOW that I have cool cars, my own private jet, a different supermodel every night, but man-oh-man that is so much worse than you not being able to afford basic healthcare for your 3 children and one of them dies from an easily preventable disease. You are so much better off than me!!!"
Anectdotal stories on how the rich are so miserable don't really do it for me.
This is more like actual reality: https://www.businessinsider.com/study-shows-money-can-buy-ha...
82% of the wealthy were happy, while 98% of the poor were unhappy
87% of the wealthy were happy in their marriage, while 53% of the poor were unhappy
93% of the wealthy were happy because they liked or loved what they did for a living, while 85% of the poor were unhappy
0% of the wealthy were unhappy due to finances, while 98% of the poor were unhappy
.
Wait...are you a billionaire???
However, as is often the case, emotion driven decisions have horrible secondary effects. Is Seoul setting aside money for compensating landlords for loss of legal income? Is Seoul building affordable housing? Is Korea delivering high quality government services evenly throughout the country?
Seoul, one of the world's richest cities, isn't offering her a NPV of her future rent. Seoul isn't building affordable housing.
This landlady has had a much tougher life than her tenants who have had much tougher lives than most on this forum
I don't think the old lady was being a NIMBY Andy.
Feels... weirdly aggressive for no reason. It's a great moment, but it's not a plot focused one. It has no consequences nor any particular proposition of consequences. In real life, yes, floods are dangerous. In real life a flood would be a significant life event. But that's not the character of this scene. The best shot of the film, and personally I think he best shot I've ever seen period, is of the daughter just smoking on the toilet while it overflows with sewage during the flood. She's not afraid, in fact, she's pretty apathetic to it all.
Water is a recurring motif in the film. The rich people stay dry. The water flows down to the poor who get soaked. The fact that people have actually died from this kind of flooding is tragic, but it shouldn't redefine how one interprets the scene. The family narrowly avoids a complete disaster and this is just a brutal reminder that their lives still suck.
Doesn't sound healthly
If emotions were a spouse being happy during bad times would be similar to being happy when your spouse is abusing you and enduring it. Isn't it more healthy to be negatively affected by it so you can change or exit the situation?
This is probably the important bit here!
One can probably talk about having a positive outlook being overall a good idea in life in many cases, but I'm also inclined to agree with you that experiencing the whole emotional spectrum when appropriate is also an enriching experience.
Just as long as you don't let certain emotions or feelings overwhelm you too much, e.g. getting used to being angry about something and focusing on it too much. Learning to let things go is probably also a useful skill, as is self reflection.