Dave's World (2012)

Summary

With the 20th century in the past and romantic days behind us, most everything in life is focused on materialism, the size of houses and cars.  However, how much longer can people adapt to the society that stresses so much on outer appearances?  How much longer must we wait until people become part of the nature again; how much longer until the society finally recognizes the full value of the nature and humans? 
In this age of Mammonism, where even the humans are socially looked down upon for being part of the nature that is perishing, people whose financial abilities that are below average are like dried up leaves dangling on the autumn tree, fighting against the wind storm.  This movie displays the downfall of the main character, Dave. In reality, we witness one of our family members, relatives, friends, or other members of the society get financially dissociated and disappear somewhere else.  We are like group of herds feeding on grass, peacefully enjoying the temporary safety, while one of its previous members was lost to the lion.  This movie is asking a universal, yet true question to the society, how we should accept the modern human nature with our hearts hardened, unable to foresee our own future.

Synopsis

After depositing the money and some stocks that he earned from a single shot of successful trading business in the bank, Dave spends his daily life partying, and wasting away with his friends. Like himself, his friends also enjoy partying, and live like hopeless bums.  As each day passes, his bank account hits zero, yet Dave still has a girlfriend who loyally stayed by his side even though he hasn’t worked nor earned a single penny in years.  Elizabeth is a hardworking woman who works 9~5, earning the money she needs by working at a regular job.  She has dreams, and has desires to have different jobs, but in reality, everything is too tight that she cannot even have dreams.  Still, she is sacrificing herself while having hopes up for her lover, Dave, and waiting for him to shine bright someday.  Sometimes, she gets sick of her reality of not being able to watch over her sick mother who is in a senior home, and having to deal with Dave’s extravagant lifestyle.  One day, she receives final notices, and foreclosure notices from the bank, but she doesn’t make a big fuss about it.  She already knew that house payment wasn’t being made, and she was purposely making things worse by not taking any actions; in hope of waking Dave up from his fantasy-like dreams.   However, once Dave hits the reality, he does not act according to the common sense.  Instead of trying to find a job and bring his life back to normal, he falls deeper into drinking, depends heavily on gambling, and runs away from the reality.  Elizabeth decides that there is no use in trying to wait from Dave to turn back, gives up on her relationship with Dave and leaves.  It is the result of her patience hitting the limit, and exploding.  Unsure whether or not he knew of Elizabeth’s departure, but he approaches Daisy’s sister, Karen, who’s an ex-girlfriend left Dave years ago, he has had feelings toward for a while. Once Karen realizes why Dave is approaching her, she coldly turns away from him.  Dave (who is originally from orphanage and didn’t have much people around him in the first place) lost all relationships he had- with his lover, friends, and everyone else.  He is truly left alone, and falls deeper into alcoholism.  He continues to receive collect-calls from the bank and his house is put to auction, but Dave gets mentally broken, and continues to live a life far from grasping the reality.  He fantasizes and prepares himself for unrealistic things like the ultimate destruction of nature, downfall of social system, and absence of political system. He continues to live in alcoholism, victim’s mentality saying his life is ruined, emotional emptiness from all the loss of relationships.  Soon he will lose his house in an auction, and he prepares for the final battle in his garage.  To Dave, who prepared from the battle every day, the day finally came. Who will be his ultimate opponent?

Plot

Dave is a very indecisive character that especially likes drinking, and hanging out with friends.  In society, he is financially incompetent.  He is a passive-optimistic, unrealistic, selfish man who does not care much for the future or his way of living.   He is blindly proud of himself, and too stubborn to compromise or cooperate with the world.  Even though he has no financial power, he has spent years wasting money on leisurely activities entertaining himself.  On the other hand, his girlfriend - Elizabeth- is realistic, understanding, and hard working.  She possesses many aspects of being the typical “middle class” woman. 

Elizabeth still believes that Dave has the potential to become successful, and hopefully awaits for the day to come where Dave will fully utilize his potential to achieve his dreams, and happy days to begin.  However, Elizabeth soon realizes that Dave man who seeks gambling-like unrealistic magic, and decides that he is unreliable, and with his characteristic, he cannot survive in this materialistic society.  She ultimately leaves Dave’s side.  Because he was so insensitive to the reality, Dave did not know how hard it was to acquire the necessities for life every month.  By luck, he had been able to hold a job for a couple of years after college, and manage a financially stable life, but eventually gets isolated from not only his lover, and friends, but also from the society.  He soon falls into deep fear, and psychological panic when he realizes that he is incompetent, weak, and that he no longer has anyone to depend on, and his life collapses.

Dave's World (Short film, 2012, 39:59)

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