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[HanCinema's Film Review] "I Need You"

In January of 2007 the General Motors branch in South Korea restructured its labor policies. The exact minutae of what they did is kind of complicated but the short of it is that, like in most capitalist systems today, there's an arbitrary distinction between full-time workers and part-time workers that has less to do with the kind of work that's being done and more with how the schedules are designed. Full-time workers have union contracts, so they're guaranteed jobs and usually have first pick of less intensive work. While part-time workers also have contracts, they have to take whatever they can get. In 2010 General Motors attempted another restructuring, and this time the part-time workers decided to fight back with a strike.

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"I Need You" is, tonally, the story of a strike told not through dynamic events, but through the day-to-day malaise of the strike. The strikers only number somewhat higher than a dozen, and their main bargaining chip is bad publicity disproportionate to their numbers. A couple of them are stuck in a high spot and simply refuse to come down until the situation is resolved. After a point I had to wonder whether this was tenacity or just stubbornness.

...Which is a depressing thought, because it reminds me of how I am a product of my era. It's hard to believe that a hundred years ago workers would regularly mass in the hundreds and starts riots because of labor disputes. I'm inclined to think that this is less a consequence of our living in a civilized time and more just an apathetic one. A major point made in "I Need You" is that full-time workers have zero interest in what General Motors is doing to the part-time ones.

Now, on the flip side, it's also easy to take the conservative position that maybe as part-time workers the strikers are asking for a bit much, particularly since the economic downturn would appear to provide a valid excuse for General Motors to be less generous with employment packages. It's at that point I think to myself that I doubt any executives took a pay cut just because the economy went bad.

But political elements notwithstanding "I Need You" really is just focused on the endless, boring strike. And there too I have to admit I eventually wanted the strike to end mostly because then the documentary would also end, and then I could stop watching nothing happening. "I Need You" is accurate, yet it's also not especially engaging for that reason. The chief irony being that it's clear the strikers were getting as sick of the situation as I was.

Political slogans can only go so far, after all. Recall that strikers aren't generally after some huge cause. They just want fair contracts for themselves and their friends. They believe in honor, and are reluctant to give up on anything if that means betraying their friends. Which oddly enough is more important than the contracts or the money. That's the story "I Need You" tells, and however flawed, it is nonetheless a very human documentary.

Review by William Schwartz

"I Need You" is directed by Kim Su-mok and narrated by Kim Su-mok

 

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