海邊的巴別塔/Tower of Babel by the sea

Adapted from part two of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's tragic play Faust, the film uses Mephistopheles as the prototype of its antagonist. In the film, the modern Faust, who is ever-changing in his outward appearance, yearns at fulfilling his sense of self. To achieve this, he reclaims land from the ocean to build industrial parks for his ideal city. Tall smokestacks belching smoke into the sky reflect man’s insatiable greed. Enticed by the devil, man continues to build his Tower of Babel to reach to the realm of the gods, yet in the process, he loses his health and his life, and also compromises the sustainability of the natural resources at his disposal.
The film expresses vehement disapproval toward the economics of over-consumption. Industrial emissions and waste water discharge from petrochemical factories have rendered farmlands toxic and coastal areas lifeless, while rising sea levels due to climate warming have inundated the land. As pollution spreads like a pandemic, man is cursed, and nature is caught in a spiral of death.