The movie I Don’t Fire Myself is the story of Jung-eun (YOO Da-in) who has been devoted to her job for 7 years, only to be offered one day with the choice between a so-called “resignation under instruction” and being sent to work for a subcontractor, without knowing the exact reason for this ultimatum. Choosing the latter, Jeong-eun intends to do whatever it takes to endure performing manual labor outdoors for a year until she is allowed to return to her previous company but said job consists of repairing transmission towers, and just getting her feet off the ground makes Jeong-eun feel uneasy. She finds a spark of hope in the "newbie” of the team (OH Jung-se), who reaches out to her. I Don’t Fire Myself is the latest from director LEE Tae-gyeom, who directed the short film The Road Of Revenge and the feature Boy Director (2008). The film has been embraced by the public as it exceeded 10,000 sales on the first weekend of its release.

You are today presenting your new film, twelve years after your previous work, Boy Director (2008).

I kept trying to make movies, but that was not a walk in the park. I first had the idea for I Don’t Fire Myself back in 2015, the script was completed in 2017 and I filmed it in the fall of 2018.

I heard that the idea for the film came from a newspaper article you read about a middle-aged woman who had a white-collar job and endured all kinds of humiliations after being arbitrarily sent to work outdoors in the country.

For a film director, making a movie is a job. And considering that I was unable to do my job, I found myself feeling a lot of empathy for that woman upon reading this article. There are probably parts I couldn’t get my head around, since it was a woman in the real story. That’s why, although the first draft was written by me, for the final script I worked with KIM Ja-eon, a woman screenwriter who has a lot of experience doing white-collar jobs. 

Actor OH Jung-se and the other actors who play the workers must have needed intensive training to appear as technicians who know their trade.

They learned everything at the Daewon Electric Education Center in North Chungcheong Province, including things like how to properly use the safety equipment, how to climb a tower, the basics of equipment and clothing, and basic tasks related to transmission.

Why did you choose transmission towers as the backdrop of the story?

It was such a shock when I first saw a transmission tower up close. With its chunky and blunt gray, its iron texture, it gave me the feeling of something unconquerable and impenetrable. If you look at them without moving, transmission towers are tall but also marked with consistent regularity. And if you turn your gaze a little to the side, the geometrical structure creates intertwining patterns. I thought these entangled lines looked like spider webs. Why so many workers never change jobs? Because they don’t have the luxury of choice. I thought that transmission towers were the structures that could best allude to and represent that situation.

There are many scenes where transmission towers are scrutinized from every angle.

I wanted to adequately convey Jeong-eun's emotions, the fear, and awe that any human must feel when dwarfed by a transmission tower standing right in front of them, or by a human who must conquer it. 

In addition to using transmission towers as metaphors, you’ve also used music in a way that seems to translate in sounds the dread that affects the protagonists.

I was afraid that the situations the characters are facing would not necessarily feel connected to the spatiality of transmission towers if I just joined the shots one after the other and called it a day. I sensed that music was necessary to connect everything, and I thought that said music should include the sound of electricity flowing through the wires or the ringing in the ears people can be inflicted with as occupational disease, the sound of hand tools hitting a transmission tower – tang, tang – and the sound of the wind you can hear when climbing a transmission tower. I talked a lot with the music directors about these aspects. The soundtrack was completed six months to a year before production began, and so I had the music in mind while I was filming. Had I not done so, it would have been difficult for the characters and the pylons to work well together. To me, the fear of climbing the pylon for the first time, the tension and urgency when getting closer to it, and the excitement when climbing is conveyed by the music.

I am curious as to the circumstances that led you to cast YOO Da-in and OH Jung-se in the lead roles.

In our movie, a large part of the acting has to do with inner feelings. The film deals with a variety of complex situations and the conflicts between the characters who find themselves in these situations. These bottled-up emotions are finally released further into the movie, but even then, that outburst is still a component of the depiction of these inner feelings. YOO Da-in came to mind when I was thinking about portraying these emotions. She is an actor who can express the innermost emotions. As for OH Jung-se, he once told me he wanted to play a character who is a nice guy but isn’t being paid as much as he should be. So, he was probably all too willing to take on the role. Both actors had a remarkable understanding of the characters’ circumstances. That’s how we ended up with characters that are both realistic and oddly charming.

You have been regularly dealing with labor issues through works such as 1984: We Sing in Chorus, on shipyard workers, and The Road of Revenge, which follows migrant workers who were fired.

I was associated with those works, but that happened by coincidence. When I was in college, I did traditional mask dance drama and [its 1970s form employed for political activism] Madanggeuk performances, but these were art forms that brought together the era when they were created and the social climate of the times. I believe that good works, whether they are in literature or film, question humanity. They explore the notion of restoration of said humanity. Next for me, I would like to make a work of that dimension, whether it is a large or a small one, and whether the topic is labor issues or not.

How did you get your start in filmmaking?

After graduating from college, I got a job and found myself longing for something called 'expression'. After working for a while, I found out that I am the type of person that wants to express myself. So, while still doing my office job, I studied film at an independent film workshop. I was studying movies at the office, then one day I quit and started studying in earnest. In the future, I would like to continue to address human issues.