A deserving Best Screenplay winner at the Cannes Film Festival, Lee Chang-Dong’s “Poetry” is a masterclass in weaving together weighty themes so that the overall effect is effortless, light as gossamer, but shot through with insight, compassion and humanity. The first half hour feels slow but the gentleness of the pace belies the film’s intelligence; nothing, but nothing happens without consequence to the story further along. And in its last third the film really sings, with all the strands of this one woman’s life — comic, tragic or mundane — coming together in a heartrending climax that is at once truthful and unexpected.
The story is cued up as follows: Grandmother Mija (the beautiful Yun Jeong-hie) lives in a small apartment with her teenage grandson, and makes ends meet by acting as a part-time maid/nurse to an elderly stroke victim. She joins a poetry class. When the suicide of a local schoolgirl comes to light, and her grandson is discovered to have been involved, Mija’s life starts to unravel – with not only her moral conscience troubling her and financial pressures mounting, she is also starting to become confused in her mind and to forget words, just as she is trying to write a poem for her class.
If it sounds melodramatic, it really isn’t – while it’s hardly possible to overstate the number of themes woven through this fascinating film, you also cannot oversell the grace and wisdom with which they are treated. It is long, it is stately and, as you would imagine with a Korean film about death, beauty, loneliness and the pursuit of artistic inspiration, it’s not for everyone. But those willing to give themselves over to it are in for a rewarding and beautiful experience that stays with you long after those final stanzas fade.
By Jessica Kiang.
