It’s been a while since I’ve sat down and watched a movie on my own. Checking back on my diary, apparently I last watched a film called Before Sunrise on December 8.
I had heard about this 1995 movie for a while. It is about two strangers in their early 20s who meet on a train in Europe and they have only one night together before saying goodbye. The entire movie simply revolves around the two characters walking around town, talking, doing couple-ish activities, sharing their views of life, and along the way we the audience get to see a fuller picture of their personalities.
The movie is alright. It’s well made and the script is very intelligent, but I think it falls a bit flat. I didn’t really feel a strong sense of provocation or wonder after the credit rolled. I guess on a second viewing I’ll come to appreciate some of the subtle details better.
Anyway, I got this Saturday evening all to myself so I decided it’s time for another movie. I picked Margin Call, a 2011 drama about the events leading up to the 2008 financial crisis.
I just finished the film and I feel compelled to write a quick review of my thoughts here.
In summary, the movie takes place in a 24-hour span and details the atmosphere inside a Wall Street investment bank as it suddenly realises the massively profitable assets it’s been building up for the past 3 years are beyond volatile and risky, and the company’s subsequent desperate attempts to dump the assets to unsuspecting buyers.
Much has already been said about this film: the ensemble cast is amazing, the suspense is built up artfully, the characters incredibly realistic, and the dialogue intelligent. Personally though, I am most impressed by the atmosphere the movie creates and by the questions that it provokes in the viewer.
Firstly, watching Margin Call, you are transported to the sterile world of a Wall Street bank. I’m using the word “sterile” here because seriously, it just aptly encapsulates the atmosphere of the film: the callous and robotic way the HR women fire their employees, the spotless interior of their office buildings, the immaculate outfits that pretty much all the characters have on. And about 95% of the film takes place inside the high rise office building, so you get the feeling that this is literally the life, the world of these bankers.
When I was younger, I used to romanticise the office environment quite a lot. I’d dream of one day working in one of those extremely professional looking office floors with glass doors, panoramic window views, and surrounded by well-groomed and sharply dressed people in impressive suits and so on.
Well, now all of that just no longer seems so appealing. It’s merely an environment designed to elicit focus and professionalism from workers. It’s an environment that can be incredibly stressful, indifferent and cold at times.
If I could to go back to the early 2017 days when Phong and I were living and working in the rundown Lê Trọng Tấn classroom, and if we still got to work with the same sense of meaning, enthusiasm, and joy that we did back then, then I’d gladly take it over a 5-star office building any day. It’s not the building, but what happens inside it that matters.
And secondly, I especially love how the movie portrays the themes of greed and the characters’ fruitless search for meaning and fulfilment despite the abundance of money.
One of the senior bankers made 2.5 million dollars the previous year, and yet he seems the most cynical of all. The character portrayed by Kevin Spacey makes probably an ungodly amount of money, and yet he has nothing: his dog just died, his wife left him, and at the end of the film he agrees to stay with the company against his morals simply because he needs the money.
Another philosophical theme the movie depicts is our inherent desire to do something good to the world and perhaps leave a tangible mark. The bank’s CEO says in one of his conversations that capitalism is just manipulating numbers: buying, selling, trading, and then getting rich along the way (that’s how he becomes a billionaire by the way). Kevin Spacey’s character is deeply troubled by this notion. The CEO says that if it wasn’t for this banking job Spacey would be digging holes in the ground, to which Spacey replied “At least there would be holes to show for it.” Which is true, because these bankers are knowingly screwing lives and profiting off people’s losses while contributing nothing positive to the world.
In another scene, one of the bankers who was let go says that he used to be an engineer, and he built a bridge in 1986 that connects two towns. This bridge has helped save thousands of hours of driving for the residents of those communities. He seems especially proud talking about this bridge, and yet there is a clear sense of emptiness in his voice, as if he is wondering what his past 20 years of devotion to the bank has been for?
The very same question occupies my mind constantly. Why the hell am I doing all of this? What am I dedicating my youth to? Clearly it’s not money, because I don’t even get any payment for my work. The money all goes back into reinvestment and growth for our business.
I guess the reason why we’re working almost relentlessly like this is that deep down inside, we’re still young and hungry for a sense of meaning. Money is a tool for us to achieve this rather than an end goal.
For me, I simply do not want to become an old man filled with regret, and I want to leave a legacy I can later be proud of. That’s it. I’d fucking hate to be a 40-year-old with a ridiculous bank account balance, yet filled with regret and emptiness.