Poetry

South Korea 2010

Dir: Lee Chang-dong

139 mins Subtitled

Cast: Yun Jeong-hie, Lee Da-wit, Kim Hee-ra

Rating: M

"The key to poetry," says the teacher in Lee Chang-dong's sublime new film, "is seeing, because we live by seeing. If you really see something, you can feel."

In a nutshell, that is the journey of 66-year-old Mija (a terrific Yun Jung-hee), a woman who is raising a nihilistic high school-age grandson on her own and might have the beginnings of Alzheimer's disease.

...A heartrending film, Lee's Poetry is indeed a work of art.

G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle

Poetry is daring in the ways only quiet, unhurried but finally haunting films have the courage to be. A character study of remarkable subtlety joined to a carefully worked-out plot that fearlessly explores big issues like beauty, truth and mortality, it marks the further emergence of Korean writer-director Lee Chang-dong.

Lee’s script for this film took the best screenplay prize at Cannes last year, and his previous directing effort, 2008’s Secret Sunshine, won the festival’s best actress award for Jeon Do-yeon. If there had been any justice at Cannes, Poetry’s star, the acclaimed Yun Jung-hee, would have won best actress as well.

With more than 300 films to her credit as well as a victory in a national poll to select the greatest actress in Korean cinema history, Yun came out of a 16-year retirement to appear in this film. It was a wise choice.

... Mija’s struggle to come to terms with what is important in life in the face of all she’s learned is Poetry’s central dilemma, and the filmmaker resolves it in an especially elegant way that lingers in the mind. Insightful and observant about people, with a style that is allusive and indirect but always clear, Lee develops his themes slowly but with unmistakable sureness, and a gift like that is always a pleasure to experience.

 Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

If it could be reduced to anything as prosaic as a formula, this mysterious and beautiful film from Korean director Lee Chang-dong might be expressed as Ozu plus … what? It is a picture of something inexpressibly gentle and sad, something heartbreaking and absolutely normal, but something stirred up by a violent, alien incursion. Something lands with an almighty splash in this calm millpond of melancholy regret. ...

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian