We just came home from seeing the lovely South Korean movie, "Poetry," starring Jeong-hie Yun as Mija, a 66-year-old woman who is raising her grandson Wook (Da-wit Lee) alone in a smallish town while her daughter, Wook's mother, is working in the big city of Busan. As the film opens, we see a beautiful river with some children playing nearby, until one child spots a corpse floating in the river. It turns out to be the body of a 16-year-old girl who has committed suicide. Leaving that scene, we find Mija in a hospital, complaining to the doctor about a sensation in her arm that is bothering her, and oh yes, she's having trouble remembering words too. The doctor tells her to exercise for the arm condition, but he refers her to a larger hospital in Seoul to test her memory. As the story plays out, Mija finds that she must cope with the heinous activities of her grandson, her gradually progressing dementia, her ongoing poverty and the behaviour of the elderly man, apparently a stroke victim, for whom she cleans and cares a couple of times a week. To help settle her mind, she decides to take a poetry class at the local community center, a month-long class in which the teacher proclaims that everybody will be asked to write a poem by the end of the sessions. Mija takes in all the advice about really seeing what is in her environment, and writing down her feelings about the things she is observing, but still, she feels unable to write a poem. She keeps trying, though, through all her trials and tribulations....
I don't want to say much more about this film because I don't want to give anything away, but I will say that it moves in directions I did not expect. It is a long film, almost 2 1/2 hours, and it's got a very languid pace; I almost want to say that not much happens in it, but in fact a lot does happen, it's just that it happens slowly, over time, without any ferocious outburst of action or jump-cutting or all the frenetic film work we're used to seeing in North America. No, this is a quiet film that takes it's time. It's beautifully photographed by Hyun Seok Kim, and the writer/director Chang-dong Lee allows the marvelous actress Jeong-hie Yun to gradually reveal the multiple layers of this richly observed character. I suppose it's mostly a character study, really, and the character of Mija is one we really come to know and respect and even love. It's sad, very sad in parts, but it's just so beautiful and heart-felt that the sadness seems just the way it should be. I know it's been playing in cities throughout North America, a bit at a time, and if it comes to your town, you really should make an effort to see it.
I don't want to say much more about this film because I don't want to give anything away, but I will say that it moves in directions I did not expect. It is a long film, almost 2 1/2 hours, and it's got a very languid pace; I almost want to say that not much happens in it, but in fact a lot does happen, it's just that it happens slowly, over time, without any ferocious outburst of action or jump-cutting or all the frenetic film work we're used to seeing in North America. No, this is a quiet film that takes it's time. It's beautifully photographed by Hyun Seok Kim, and the writer/director Chang-dong Lee allows the marvelous actress Jeong-hie Yun to gradually reveal the multiple layers of this richly observed character. I suppose it's mostly a character study, really, and the character of Mija is one we really come to know and respect and even love. It's sad, very sad in parts, but it's just so beautiful and heart-felt that the sadness seems just the way it should be. I know it's been playing in cities throughout North America, a bit at a time, and if it comes to your town, you really should make an effort to see it.