A heartbreaking and disturbingly gripping tale of survival
Thoughts about the end of the world often plague the minds of humans and this fascination has been represented frequently in the form of post-apocalyptic films and TV shows. These usually depict a world that is about to go into chaos or is already in chaos because of a life-threatening incident that is causing the end of the world.
With the main theme of these stories being “survival of the fittest”, viewers see the extreme conditions that would arise after an apocalypse. The 2023 Korean film, Concrete Utopia is one such story that portrays the ugly side of humans when it comes to survival. The film boasts a runtime of 130 minutes and stars Lee Byung-hun, Park Seo-joon and Park Bo-young in lead roles.
Concrete Utopia starts in medias res as we see the aftereffects of a brutal earthquake that has left the city in a mess. The film centres around a lone surviving apartment complex, Hwang Gung Apartments, which (along with its original residents) also inhabits a bunch of surviving residents from nearby buildings.
With scant resources and a lack of organisation, the members of Hwang Gung Apartments are forced to make some tough decisions that lead to an eventual anticipated pandemonium. The film focuses on the residents of the complex who deem themselves superior because they live in the sole surviving building in the middle of an apocalypse.
This superiority complex has hindered most of the residents from channelling their empathetic sides and is preventing them from seeing the gravity of their own actions. The residents act selfishly but in a crisis situation like theirs, a viewer would not blame them for putting their own survival at the forefront.
To these residents, the “utopia” they live in is perfect and absolute which forces them to do things that can be deemed as morally wrong. With their survival instincts alert, all thanks to this crisis situation, most of the residents in this apartment complex are unapologetically keeping their morals at bay.
Concrete Utopia forces viewers to introspect one’s moral grounding because things that one deems morally wrong in the real world do not apply in this post-apocalyptic world. The film is a gripping watch and narrates the disturbing reality of a disaster that leaves human settlements in ruins in its wake.
Despite being set in a post-apocalyptic version of Seoul, the direction and cinematography forces you to analyse every character. The plot twist that unfolds in the second half of the film forces viewers to re-evaluate everything they believed in the first half.
The film does end on a rather sad but sombre note with no real resolution to the crisis, but there is hope for a better future, much like the real world where all we have is hope.
Read More: Concrete Utopia (2023) Ending Explained
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Verdict - 9/10
9/10