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A review by qalminator
City of Ash and Red by Pyun Hye-young
3.0
Oddly surreal, with enough thematic similarity to the movie Parasite for me to really wonder what life is like in Korea to inspire such things. The plot, such as it is, is about "the man" (never named) who transfers to another country for work, only to have everything go horribly wrong, though we find out things had been going horribly wrong for some time before that for him. There's a consistent theme of loss: of objects (he loses his suitcase the same day he arrives), of self (he drifts from situation to situation, identity drifting as well), of control (when he loses his temper, he lashes out at any convenient target).
We never find out exactly what's going on, though "the man" eventually finds himself in a slightly better situation, but never manages to really reconnect with anything or anyone from his past.
I'm not really sure what I think of this one. I would classify it as existentialist absurdism, so I'm probably not supposed to be sure what I think of it. If you tend to enjoy existentialist absurdism, it's worth a look. If you like things to be neat and tidy and make sense, you should probably give it a miss.
We never find out exactly what's going on, though "the man" eventually finds himself in a slightly better situation, but never manages to really reconnect with anything or anyone from his past.
I'm not really sure what I think of this one. I would classify it as existentialist absurdism, so I'm probably not supposed to be sure what I think of it. If you tend to enjoy existentialist absurdism, it's worth a look. If you like things to be neat and tidy and make sense, you should probably give it a miss.