When a "Pure Approach" Becomes Rude [Limelight]

Jo Yeojeong on Playing Yeji in "Possible Love"
Erasing Intent and Portraying the Contradictions of Innocence

Actor Jo Yeojeong/Netflix.

The work actress Jo Yeo-jeong devoted the most effort to in playing Yeji in the film "Possible Love" was erasing her intentions. Yeji is a documentary filmmaker who films a couple of laid-off workers. Even when Ho-seok (Seol Kyung-gu), who suffers from trauma, has a seizure by a stream, she chooses to keep filming instead of helping him. Jo had to make Yeji seem unaware that her actions were rude. Because they went against her own sense of what was right, she needed reassurance before filming. Director Lee Chang-dong replied that all directors feel that way. She had no more questions. "If that's how you see Yeji, I have to trust you. If I lose confidence, the film could go in a different direction."

Jo Yeo-jeong, whom we met at a cafe in Jongno-gu, Seoul, on Nov. 10, said that this trust led her to see Yeji's actions as a sincere effort unique to the character. In general, documentary directors build a strong rapport with their subjects before picking up a camera. They are so cautious that they hesitate even with their finger on the record button. Yeji is different. While filming Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon), who works at a mask factory, she is so tactless and insensitive that she says, "Watching someone work is so simple and repetitive. It's not interesting."

Jo imagined Yeji as someone who is sincere in front of the camera. "A pure approach can seem rude to someone, can't it? She doesn't realize it. It's because she's more sincere than anyone." A contradiction arises from the fact that Yeji never doubts herself. Yeji admires Krzysztof Kieslowski, a director who gave up documentary filmmaking after questioning whether a camera should capture other people's suffering. Asked why Yeji acts in the exact opposite way, Jo laughed and said, "I think she was drawn to his work, not to Kieslowski himself."

Still from the film "A Possible Love."

To portray Yeji's disconcertingly guileless manner, Jo took a step back. She thought the camera itself could be violent and unsettling, and that she should be present like a shadow. She focused on listening to Jeon Do-yeon and making eye contact with her. "When we filmed the scene where Mi-ok talks about the car wash from her childhood, I was completely absorbed in her story, just as I would be in a real conversation. I forgot I was acting."

The challenging part of this performance was concealing what lay beneath the surface. Even though she knew the character's hidden side, she had to seem like someone with no intention at all. A prime example is the scene where Yeji wears expensive clothes in front of the laid-off workers. When Mi-ok points this out, Yeji doesn't make excuses; she signals with a gesture that she understands and gets through the awkward moment. "I had to portray her as someone who hadn't even thought to pay attention to something like that. Without making it feel awkward. But the screenplay had even those directions written out in detail."

There is a moment when what she has concealed is laid bare. It is the scene where her husband, Sang-woo (Jo In-sung), calls her approach "method acting." Jo said, "She never thought of herself as approaching them through acting, so being defined by one pointed word must have stung." She continued, "She says, 'I'm trying to love those people.' I interpreted it as something Yeji wants to believe, even though it's not true. I don't think it's strange. In everyday life, loving someone and believing that you love them often get mixed up."

A still from the film "Possible Love."

The way Yeji's subtly different inner side is conveyed through an innocent face also recalls Yeon-gyo in "Parasite" (2019). A well-to-do woman who is decisive yet quick to trust strangers, she resembles Yeji in her lack of awareness of the hardships faced by the poor. But while "Parasite" portrays innocence through humor, "Possible Love" turns it into a question. The value of Yeji's presence lies in reflecting back to the audience the ideas that emerge from this question. Viewers who criticize her are prompted to ask themselves where they stand when confronted with someone else's suffering.

The question follows Yeji even after the film ends. Asked whether Yeji completed her documentary, Jo laughed and said, "I'd like to leave that open for the audience to decide." When asked whether someone who kept filming even as Ho-seok had a seizure would have pushed through and finished it, she replied, "Yeji was sincere to the very end." She added, "Turning sincerity into rudeness isn't unique to Yeji. Doesn't everyone do that when they're working?"

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.