A Korean drama from Critics’ Week at Cannes that discusses bullying in the workplace and circles of silence.
Sohee is happy. She has been really lucky. A girl who has not yet graduated from college has got an internship at a major South Korean company. She has to give up dancing, something she was really good at, but it’s worth it for her dream career. However, it soon becomes clear that there is a frightening atmosphere at work. The girl ends up in a call center where interns have to deal with clients and use any means possible to persuade them to remain with the company. A typical day for Sohee involves being bullied by clients and by her bosses, and gradually the girl begins to understand that there is no way out of this poisonous atmosphere.
Next Sohee is the second feature by South Korean director Jung Joo-ri. Her debut, A Girl at My Door, told a similar story: a policewoman attempts to protect a teenage girl from bullying in a village in the middle of nowhere. Jung Joo-ri can be considered the creative follower of another South Korean director, Lee Chang-Dong (Oasis, Poetry, Burning). The nucleus of her films is the viewer’s synchronization with the trauma of the main character, the experience of pain together with them. Next Sohee initially seems to be a drama about violence, but it fairly quickly moves beyond the boundaries of the genre to become a detective story with a new main character. This is detective Oh Yoo-jin, who tries to identify and punish those to blame for the girl’s death. The film is based on a true story and the title of the film indicates that the girl is just a tiny cog in the totalitarian machine of capitalism, and standing up to it sometimes means paying the ultimate price.
The film will be shown in Korean with Russian subtitles.
Next Sohee
Director Jung Joo-ri
South Korea, 2022. 138 min. 18+