Cast: Yun Junghee, David Lee, Kim Hira, An Haesong, Kim Yongbaek
Mija is a quiet and thoughtful old woman who seems out of place in Seoul’s ferocious urban modernity. She has been forgotten about by her family, her community, and her country; and seems resigned to living out her days caring for her sulking and selfish grandson. That is until she decides to take up an evening class in poetry, and thus slowly begins to view the world around her with new eyes, and to see the beauty and pain that abounds in the city and the natural world. When her grandson and his friends are accused of raping a girl, who subsequently committed suicide, Mija is forced to join the other boys’ fathers in an attempt to cover up the crime before word spreads.
Yun Junghee’s performance is unmissable. She is confused and vacant, but there is a quiet power and resolution to her actions. She is forgetful and often hopeless; but some of her poetic insights are disarmingly thoughtful, and when she is backed into a corner by the manipulative gang of fathers, she is not scared to fight back.
‘Poetry’ is a slow-building and patient film, and its exploration of Mija as a character is fascinating. The hazy palette of colours is strangely alluring and, well, poetic, and it ensnares the viewer in a mystified dream world. However, there can be no possible justification for the filmmaker’s appalling and irresponsible approach to the difficult subject matter. On a literal level, this is a story about the cover up of a horrific crime; reading between the lines, this is a story about Korea’s emerging middle classes abusing their power and influence to stifle the injustice suffered by the rural working classes. And yet Changdong refuses to say anything about it at all; whether this is incompetence of malaise is beyond my comprehension, but it is an issue that prevents this film being truly worthy of commendation.
Mija is a quiet and thoughtful old woman who seems out of place in Seoul’s ferocious urban modernity. She has been forgotten about by her family, her community, and her country; and seems resigned to living out her days caring for her sulking and selfish grandson. That is until she decides to take up an evening class in poetry, and thus slowly begins to view the world around her with new eyes, and to see the beauty and pain that abounds in the city and the natural world. When her grandson and his friends are accused of raping a girl, who subsequently committed suicide, Mija is forced to join the other boys’ fathers in an attempt to cover up the crime before word spreads.
Yun Junghee’s performance is unmissable. She is confused and vacant, but there is a quiet power and resolution to her actions. She is forgetful and often hopeless; but some of her poetic insights are disarmingly thoughtful, and when she is backed into a corner by the manipulative gang of fathers, she is not scared to fight back.
‘Poetry’ is a slow-building and patient film, and its exploration of Mija as a character is fascinating. The hazy palette of colours is strangely alluring and, well, poetic, and it ensnares the viewer in a mystified dream world. However, there can be no possible justification for the filmmaker’s appalling and irresponsible approach to the difficult subject matter. On a literal level, this is a story about the cover up of a horrific crime; reading between the lines, this is a story about Korea’s emerging middle classes abusing their power and influence to stifle the injustice suffered by the rural working classes. And yet Changdong refuses to say anything about it at all; whether this is incompetence of malaise is beyond my comprehension, but it is an issue that prevents this film being truly worthy of commendation.
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