Si

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.

As a lover of World Cinema and having had a few poems of my own published here and there, South Korea's 'Poetry' was always going to be a double treat for me.

The film's beauty is that it's not just about poetry but how that it can fit into everyday lives and help folk the see the inner beauty that it brings. Mija (an excellent Jeong-he Yun) a 66 year old woman, suffering the onset of Alzheimers, sees the simple beauty in an apple and of fallen apricots on the ground.

She gets this after starting poetry classes and whilst she fails to get her 'poetic awakening', she sets herself the target of writing just one poem.

Considering that this gentle, graceful lady is bringing up a teenage grandson who has committed a serious crime and as a job cares part-time for an elderly stroke victim these poetical leanings are a soothing diversion for both us - and her. (She's not bad at badminton, either!) It's actually the way the film contrasts several issues, the modern contemporary ones that give the film its backbone, the age difference clashes with the grandson and the lyrical - but unsentimental - softer side and you get a modest and modern masterpiece.

Avoid if only Iron Man 2 can move you. But if you have a heart, one where a soul and emotion can flourish and you enjoy a well acted, straightforward modern film - wherever in the world that it might come from - then 'Poetry' has a wide and worthwhile appeal.

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.

Lee Chang Dong has always been a favorite Korean director of mine. His films, including "Poetry," have a subtle yet captivating force. "Poetry" is not for the average film viewer, but is for more mature audiences who are not afraid to confront life as it is and the existential aspects of life in general. The film is an exploration of complex human conditions that people can often find boring. But "Poetry" is inarguably meaningful and deep in its own way. It presents life realistically, but also paves way for finding positive little things within the worst conditions. "Poetry" is a film that will make you think in a way that almost no Hollywood movie can. Certainly, it is a powerful film as well. The only problem is that the majority of the population can misunderstand a film such as this one. It is a film that requires effort on the part of the audience to think and interpret the film for what it is. But once the purpose of the film is appreciated, it is a wonderful film for what it's worth. Go and watch it. It's a film that can change the way you look at everyday things.

Poetry (2010)

Steady and stealthy, this film proposes to be as lyrical and compact as a poem, but then it keeps going and ends up larger and more impressive than you'd expect. And the acting by leading female actress, the Korean star Jeong-hie Yun, is startling and nuanced, a great performance.

At the heart of the plot are two plots. The first is the title line—elderly Mija has decided to learn how to write poetry, so she attends a class (filled with younger students). The second is about a sex crime—a gang rape it turns out—by her grandson, who she is raising alone. The two are nearly opposites in so many ways we see how life itself balances the beautiful and ugly, and responsibility and indifference. In a larger way, "Poetry" is about contemporary life in Korea, and the interactions of ordinary people in extreme situations will be revealing to many outside of Korea.

It's hard to overstate how well this movie pulls off something socially serious and yet makes it all understated and almost matter of fact. There are these several lines of thought that keep going throughout, and that don't quite converge until the very end, which is both tragic (truly) and a bit mysterious. What exactly is the implication of that last scene on the bridge, and the water that shows nothing? It hearkens to the beginning, of course, but we have our main character at hand.

In that sense, it's a brilliant, almost perfect evocation of contemporary Korea on the most normal, middle class level. Lovely and loving, and cold and brutal. And it shows the glib sexism of the men there, much like everywhere at various times. And how to survive you sometimes have to just proceed. And then, of course, sometimes you do not survive.