‘What Do We Live For: The Conditions of Happiness’, directed by Noella Jung and Yoon Chul Lee, is set almost entirely within the calm, luxurious interior of a riverside apartment, and invites the viewer into a world where tranquility and hidden suffering exist side by side.
Even as we are introduced to the sunlit calm of the morning routine: tea by the window, gentle looks out to water that reflects soft light, there is a sense of chill in the air. Then comes dusk, and then the door opens. A different woman enters the same immaculate apartment, and the tone changes. We are never shouted at by the script. Rather, it murmurs. It is in the hesitation of a door, the briefest pause before a laugh, or when the light goes down, the shadows in the corners where there should be no shadows. It is the heartbeat of that quiet tension of the film. It is not in a hurry, it does not want catharsis, it wants to quietly press you, just enough, so that you can feel the tightening that you cannot see.
Noella Jung’s portrayal is a study in contradiction: composed and vulnerable, innocent and unsteady. She inhabits the woman in her ordered daily routines with an understated elegance that says more than it shows, the slightest action of her lifting a cup, switching off a light seems filled with significance.
The film is strangely peaceful in spite of its layer of unease. With its soft lighting, the apartment turns into something more than a backdrop: it is a quiet companion. The river outside, through tall windows, reflects both closeness and distance: the smooth surface covering moving depths. The film is careful in its rhythm, and we are given time to get used to its silence and think about the lives we create, the security we build, the truths we keep just beyond our sight. It is not off-putting or conventionally gripping; it is reassuring as it is unsettling. The result is a strange peace, not a peace that comes through closure, but through being fully present in the moment, observing the murmur of something unsaid.
‘What Do We Live For: The Conditions of Happiness’ does not leave you after the credits. It is a movie that, with subtle acting and restrained style, asks you to think rather than respond.
Written by Vlad A.G