Artistic Degrees of Separation
As an avid consumer of Art, defined in the most expansive of terms, it is not often that I stop to consider how works can be thematically tied. I typically consider each piece of work on its own merit and how that particular piece made me feel both in the moment of consumption and thereafter. Did I leave that film with a pit in my stomach, in need of alone time to think? Sometimes a film will pull me so much out of reality that it’ll take me a full day to snap out of it. When this does happen, it’s usually indicative of a good piece of work. Art is doing what it’s intended to do — drive one to think about a topic previously unconsidered.
In the past week, on two separate instances did I react in the manner aforementioned. Uncannily, the themes of these pieces intersected — a man vs. nature conflict rooted in capitalism.
The new buzzy, star-studded play, Enemy of the People, revolves around a scientist, Dr. Thomas Stockmann (played by Jeremy Strong) in a small Norwegian village, who discovers that the town’s lucrative bathhouses are infested with typhoid-causing bacteria. When he reveals his research to the townsmen, they violently revolt against Dr. Stockmann’s findings. Ameliorating the bathhouse piping means higher taxes for the community. What’s the price for contaminating your own population?
What was particularly unsettling about Enemy of the People, is its reminiscence to the early days of COVID. Living in New York City during the initial dark months, I couldn’t begin to understand the type of person or community who would openly defy science for their own personal and financial benefit and risk spreading a potentially fatal illness to others.
That’s the dilemma Dr. Stockmann faces — how can the public be apathetic bystanders to infecting their community? Beyond their lack of concern for the public, they attack Dr. Stockmann for his suggestion to shut the bathhouse — a decision that would cause tourism revenue to plummet. The townspeople unanimously choose profit over human wellbeing.
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s, Evil Does Not Exist (2023), a film set in the snowy mountains of a remote Japanese village, quietly tells a similar tale. The villagers live peacefully amongst nature, respecting the forest terrain and the deer who inhabit it. When a company comes in to try to set up a glamping site in the forest, the community rebels. Building a glamping site, as any man-made creation, comes with negative repercussions. The site requires a septic tank that would contaminate the clean water supply and the incoming tourists would increase the risk of forest fires caused by their campsites.
In contrast to Enemy of the People, where shutting the bathhouse to tourists and allowing their neighboring towns to monopolize the industry is unfathomable, the townspeople in Evil Does Not Exist, are invested in preserving the balance between man vs. nature. Here, the glamping company suggests that the community would benefit financially from increased tourism in their village but this isn’t compelling to them. While the community chooses to safeguard their natural habitat, the glamping company pushes the limits of nature, inevitably wreaking havoc onto the village. In an interview, Hamaguchi refers to this push and pull, which alludes to the meaning of the film’s title. How far do you need to push nature to become evil?
I don’t think most people start out by saying, “I want to control or conquer nature.” It starts from smaller desires. They think, “Oh, if I change this, it will become more convenient for me, or for us.” If you add up all these small desires or changes that you make, you end up with total destruction. And I think that’s basically how capitalism works.
Viewing the two works, while they are rooted in capitalist malintent, one is driven by the local community and the other, by outside forces. I’m curious how much of this difference is culturally rooted in Western individualism vs. Eastern collectivism.
On a recent trip to Seoul, South Korea, I felt this sense of collective social responsibility daily. The streets were free of garbage, irrespective that public trash cans were nowhere to be found. During rush hour, like soldiers, people lined up single file to wait their turn to board the metro. Diners waited their turn to be seated instead of arguing with hostesses. Every single public bathroom was clean, free of toilet paper on the floor. I quickly understood that everyone had agreed to play by the rules — an individual effort for the collective wellbeing.
After a few days in South Korea, I too found myself conforming in small ways. I didn’t try to skip any lines or go over the speed limit while driving on Jeju Island. I didn’t try to get ahead or win. There was no individualistic benefit; we were all guaranteed the same experience. I respected the rules because everyone respected the rules. And what happened thereafter? I noticed an unfamiliar sense of calm when interacting with the outside world. It’s as if a layer of anxiety dissipated. Why doesn’t the rest of the world live like this?
In an interview with Wim Wenders on his inspiration for Perfect Days (2023), a film that follows a Tokyo toilet cleaner who finds beauty in the mundane, he describes his dismay at the Western world post COVID -
The pandemic was over and life was worse than before…it seemed like the sense of the common good was down the drain, everyone was in it for him or herself. [However, in Tokyo], the sense of the common good was still alive…they cared for their places and took care of each other.
Wenders then knew that Tokyo needed to be the setting of his first post-pandemic film. Will South Korea be the inspiration for my next film? Unlikely, but I like to think that I brought back some level of mindfulness into my chaotic New York City home.
Irrespective of the individualistic tendencies of the West, the public reception to works like Enemy of the People, Evil Does not Exist, and Perfect Days do raise glimmers of optimism. Individualistic tendencies are deeply rooted in the Western makeup, but perhaps there is room, or at minimum an awareness, for the need of a collective good. In the meantime, we can continue to rely on art to expose us to our own ignorance.
