Futureless Things (2014)

A lesbian couple, a gambler, an out-of-school youth, a mysterious woman with magical powers and a North Korean escapee – these were just some of the characters that built the weird and surreal plot of Kim Kyung-mook’s third feature film, Futureless Things (2014). I was extremely excited to watch this particular movie because of my fascination with Korean culture and media, and I was pleasantly surprised with how different it was compared to the mainstream stuff that I usually consume and enjoy. The humor covers a wide range of blunt to dark to just plain dumb, and it does a great job of making fun of the characters and their issues without reducing them down to their Korean cultural stereotypes. The plot itself is made up of a bunch of subplots that feature different characters that don’t seem to be connected in any way. There is no obvious unified narrative, but that doesn’t stop you from trying to figure out what all the characters – who cross paths in one way or another  – have in common. The fact that all the events happen in the same small convenience store immediately set me off trying to find clues that might tie it all up together. Why a convenience store? What was so important about it that the whole movie had to be set there? It was the one question that I couldn’t avoid. Looking back, I realize that the setting of such an ordinary, seemingly boring place where anyone from anywhere could come in was a great way to emphasize the futureless-ness of the individuals in the film. Despite coming from different backgrounds, they all seemed to be pining for one thing, and these things were perfectly common, normal things to desire. That could have been the one unifying factor for all them – the fact that they wanted something better.

The title of the movie itself lends a hand in further understanding the situations of all the characters. While they may not really know each other all that well, they do all work in the same place and have a handful of similar experiences, the main being employees at the convenience store. They don’t really have much of a choice in most cases and are forced to stick with their jobs until further notice. They are stripped of their agency and cannot act nearly as freely as they’d like, making them more akin to being used as “things” instead of actual people. This sad reality is something that most of them seem to have been enduring since before the events of the movie started, and it makes you wonder if it’ll ever be any different. They continue to wish for something better, but the hopelessness of the characters about their own lives and the discontinuity of the subplots seem to point to something futureless instead.

Personally, I’m not a fan of leaving loose ends untied. I don’t like not knowing or having at least a suggestion of what might happen in the end. Futureless Things stays true to its title by leaving its audience completely puzzled as to how and why everything was connected somehow. As much as I tried to find some sort of explanation for all the random people fading into the screen and dancing while flashing creepy smiles at the camera, I really couldn’t figure it out. I guess we’ll never really know what happens to any of them in the future. Maybe they themselves don’t know either.