What you often find in gangster films of western society, is, a particular fantasy embracement. There is usually a cast of characters who engross and gratify in almost all aspects of their work. Occasionally we see the accounts of their lives from childhood idolising the gangster persona to their time in the gang in such films as Goodfellas (1990) and Once Upon A Time In America (1984). Yet in an unprecedented way, the South Korean film A Bittersweet Life (2005) takes the opposite approach in that we are shown the story of a man, who, through shear coincidence, has become an enforcer for a high ranking gangster. The character never gratifies in his work. He is clinical in his precision and treats his job strictly as business. He isn’t lavishing in wealth, he doesn’t bask in any glory and in-fact he just seems to simply exist.
That is, up until he is told to look after his boss’s young girlfriend while he is away on business. Before his boss leaves, he gives him strict instruction that if he sees her with anyone else; i.e. a young man, then he should kill her and her lover. And so, for a short while he begins to escort the young woman to various places. Here the audience begins to see the contrast between the man and young woman. He because of his work is cold; hiding his emotions as letting them show could come as a hindrance to his job. Whereas his boss’s partner is warm - she is innocent to the world of organised crime and as such is a relatively normal young woman.
Gradually as they spend more time with one another he develops a level of affection towards her. His guard begins to slip, as he seems for the first time able to open up emotionally - outside of his usual hardnosed gang environment. The attraction is not sexual; it is more innocent than that. His warmth towards her is more basic, childlike even. It pushes upon you that in her, he may see the kind of innocence that he hasn’t felt in himself since childhood. So much so that when he finds out she has been having an affair, he is unable to kill her as he was previously told. Instead he spares them both under the pretence that they will never see each other again. Unfortunately though his betrayal is discovered, finding himself now hunted by those who he’d previously worked with as colleagues.
Unleashing his raw emotions and disobeying his boss’s commands have made him a target for the mob. After taking some severe punishment from his former comrades he eventually manages to escape their capture. From this point out he sets himself the task of seeking answers to why he has been betrayed. But, as he pushes on through gang member after gang member he is given no answers. Instead he has seemingly been avenging those who had wronged him. But after a while he has nowhere else to go and so he simply keeps on going forward. Mascaraing the other members until he is finally able to confront his old boss. Yet like him at the start of the film his boss remains cold. He gives no answers. It is meaningless. Even till the end when it is just the two of them, the boss himself is still playing up to the gangster façade.
In a way the whole film could be said to be about supressed emotions. The gangsters themselves play up to their character types of being hard men. They never let their emotions show and allow the business they are in to dictate how they act around others. Some find their release in drugs, others in alcohol, yet when they find themselves presented with a real emotional connection they're unable to respond. In a way the whole film could be summed up on a subtext of suppressed emotions and, in particular, a kind of impotence.
We find in the film a young man who has suppressed his emotions for the benefit of his work. You see this in a scene where he is driving down a road and a group of young men honk their horn behind him. He stays at the same speed as they quickly drive around him. They then try to catch his attention before winding down the window and spiting at his car. As they drive away his emotions bubble to the surface and he speeds off in pursuit of them. He pulls in front of their car forcing them to stop and proceeds to beat them. After he has rendered them grounded, he pulls the keys out of their car and throws them off of the bridge they are parked on.
It’s this underling tension that pulsates throughout the film and in a way, its one of the reasons that the movie is so interesting. In all good fiction characters are developed in a way that confronts their underlying focal issues. A Bittersweet Life works in this way, in that it is about a man confronting his detriments and attempting to, by one good deed, address his issues. However when he is punished for this he confronts the work system that has kept his emotions subservient to an unknown frankly meaningless cause.
In the end though, the film leaves it unto the audience to decide amongst themselves where the protagonist’s real detriments may come from. But I think by the end of the film it appears quite clear that the characters real concessions in life have come from his confrontation (or lack of confrontation) with himself and his own emotions.
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