Poetry

Reading Poetry's summary, one sees a sentimental film. I surely wasn't sure if I wanted to see this or not. I am completely happy I did.

What we have here is a slow-paced, delicate film. But it doesn't sway in sentimentality. It's subtle, quiet, and perhaps the most gentle film of the year, but it also wallows in the study of a suburban woman and in many ways feels like a dark portrait of a story. Yoon Jeong-hee is magnificent! She conveys so much emotion, and we realize just how quickly we want to see her journey here. The direction is assured, quitely letting us explore, never calling attention to itself. The screenplay is brilliant, and has the ideal arc needed for a film like this.

There are many amazing moments in this film, moments that really grabbed me and that emotionally shook me. One of the best films of the year in an already amazing year for film.

The theme of old age and illness find a new positive essence in poetry. A device to have even the elderly explore life in new and interesting ways. The excellent screenplay and brilliant directing from Chang-Dong Lee combined with an engaged ensemble cast and revealing cinematography, give place for an intimate interaction. The poets and aspiring poets fit well in this story of inner discovery. The inspiration is difficult to come by and external events will accentuate the duality of seeing life as an observer while also being an essential actor.

The multi-layered story has poetry, dialogue, imagery and much time for reflection. The film builds up to the last poem "Agnes' Song" by Mija Yang (the protagonist) which is powerful and perfect. Accentuated by it's accompanying images, it brings out life, beauty, sadness, acceptance, connection and so much more. The editing is especially effective here, but is extraordinary throughout. The ending confirms that the collections of individually intense and intelligent scenes witnessed transcends by transposing and transforming Mija and ultimately the viewer.

Hopefully this will inspire a perhaps much needed poetic view of this hypermodern world which can barely watch deliberate thoughtful meaningful measured movies like this, much less find and read a poem. Maybe this artistic beckon will even encourage someone to write one.

What a contrast to the average Hollywood product which highlights guns afire, frantic car chases and exploding buildings--noise and action aplenty: this subtle and enticing tale of self-realization is the antithesis of the action film, although within the first few minutes of the film, in the midst of children playing near a river, a body floats by and sets an odd tone for the remainder of the film. A grandmother who learns she has an incurable illness and who discovers her grandson is not merely a disaffected teen who cannot clean up after himself--but something worse-- the woman inexplicably enrolls in a poetry class and for the next two hours we are taken along her journey in a most leisurely fashion, a film with powerful cinematography and at last, a puzzling, thoughtful conclusion: if you want easy entertainment with pat answers, this is not your film. If you enjoy an immersion in another culture from another point of view, this might be a great treat for you--it was for me

There's an outstanding outward composure pervading this movie, to the point that it seems impossible not to feel in the end a sense of calm, although the cruelty of some situations. This is probably a typical feature of all oriental pictures and culture as well, but here it is most evident, almost therapeutic. The protagonist is a small, meek, cheerfully dressed, sixty-something woman, in the early stages of Alzheimer's, who has to look after her troublesome grandson, dramatically connected with a shocking event in the small Korean city where they live. It's a slow movie, which leaves ample scope to the unsaid and the unwritten, but dripping with strong and deep humanity. Mija reveals such determination in her simple and peaceful going on, holding on, she proves the real strength of real strong people, that strength that does not need any evident outward demonstrations, but only the inner will of a meek nature who continues to see the beauty of a flower or the perfection of an apple, and the beauty of poetry, of course, against the ugliness of men (and here the ugliness of a male chauvinist society is to be underlined). The movie reveals such delicacy, such subtlety and tact while approaching the most disturbing topics, that we as viewers can manage everything, feeling a kind of respect towards us, and feeling also grateful for that. Great work by the director Lee Chang-dong then, and standing ovation for Yun Jung-hee for her intense, poignant, stunning interpretation of Mija. The last shots on her finally achieved poem are petrifying and soothing at the same time, showing an incredible emotional intensity. These are movies that should reach the big screen more often and more widely.

What a wonderful film! To give my personal answer to one interviewer's question "Do you regard cinema, too, to be a dying form?" to the director Lee Chang-Dong. I believe (and deeply hope) that as long as films like Poetry are being made cinema will continue to flourish because it is important. It will continue to exist as long as humans exist because they are about being human. I was struck by how masterfully two sides of our humanness were presented in the film. On the one hand, it is about our search for beauty, as beauty can only be experienced if something of our own potential beauty responds to the beauty around us. There is something spiritual in this as Beauty and Truth are essentially one. On the other hand, there is the human predicament. That includes the pro and cons of the fact that we always have the choice to decide if we act ethically or not. That means if we actually say Yes to what is intrinsically our positive potential, or we say No and harm others, our environment and as a kind of end result, ourselves. What for me links the two is impermanence. Old age, illness and suicide as it is shown in the film. "Everything that is born will have to die" goes a very old Buddhist saying, and that happens no matter if we like it or not. At the same time, would we experience beauty if everything was to exist forever? Is it not because a beautiful flower grows out of a very simple looking seed in spring and then withers away after some weeks that it can become so precious to us? Without impermanence there is, one could say, by definition no beauty. Both are somehow the two sides of the same metaphorical coin. The same is true about this film. It still lingers on in my heart and mind weeks after I saw it. Very much like a true and wonderful poem, for example Rainer Maria Rilke's First Duino Elegy. It is is just about that, the wonder and horror of beauty.