No Other Choice - The Violence of Compliance
We usually understand violence as the result of clear and deliberate malice. But what if violence is not the outcome of an active choice, but of compliance? If violence arises through not resisting, not questioning, and repeatedly telling oneself that there was “no other choice,” then who should be held responsible? This film confronts that uncomfortable question head-on. In his latest work, Park Chan-wook explores—through metaphor—the ways in which the logic of survival imposed by a capitalist society turns an individual into a perpetrator, and how violence is concealed and justified in the process. In the film, violence consistently appears with a legitimate face: to protect one’s family, to secure one’s livelihood, to solve problems efficiently. These justifications obscure the brutality of violence while simultaneously sustaining the very structure that enables it. This essay examines how violence emerges, repeats itself, and is ultimately produced through compliance with structur...
