Green Fish (1997)

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A movie where hopelessness is not shouted, but shown with quiet, but heart-beating details.

McDonn returns from the army and seems to be stepping into a strange world: everything around has been rebuilt, but he has remained the same. Fields and old streets were replaced by concrete high-rise buildings - and with them the feeling of home disappeared. He just wants to help a big, poor family, he wants to return at least a drop of the comfort that was before. But there is no place for him in this new order. And then he reaches for "easy" money not out of thirst for power, but out of despair - because he simply does not see other ways.

The line with Mi-ae sounds like an echo of his own trap: they both try to break out, both feel like they are drowning, and become the only support for each other. But even these sincere feelings do not give salvation - they only make it more painful, because they show how much they want a simple right to a normal life, which they do not have.

For me, the most poignant moment is a call to my brother from the phone booth. There is no plan or hope in him, only a bitter confession: he has gone too far, and there is no way back. The title of the film seems to be about this elusive hope itself: a green fish from childhood, which he tried to catch all day and could not. She's like that dream that always turns out to be one step ahead, no matter how hard you try.

And the final beats especially hard: the family's dream comes true. They now have their own restaurant, prosperity, comfort - everything they dreamed of. Only McDon himself is no longer happy in this picture. And when Mi-ae, pregnant, comes there with his killer and suddenly realizes that this is the family of the guy she was in love with, it becomes really bitter. She couldn't get out either.

This movie is about how hard it is to get used to a world that has become different, when you have neither the resources nor the time to adapt. About the fact that behind every wrong step there is a payback, and often it is much heavier than it seems at the time of choice. It leaves the same heavy bitterness inside - not because the hero is "bad", but because of how easily circumstances make a person a hostage of a situation when he is simply trying to survive.

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