시 (Poetry)

When Mija was a little girl, she was told by a teacher that she would be a poet. Decades later, she decides to join a poetry class at her local community centre. She missed the deadline for enrolment, but she tries to join anyway. There is an immediacy. She tries to tell a doctor about a pain in her arm, and her struggle to remember words is his only concern. She may have Alzheimer's disease. Her faculties for poetry may not last much longer.

Mija is a good person. She is gentle, fragile and unthreatening. She works part-time as a maid for an old man. She bathes him and cleans his home. On one occasion, he tips her 10,000 won. This is approximately nine American dollars. She is grateful for his apparent generosity. She did not expect it.

She lives with her grandson. Living off part-time wages and government subsidies, she gives him everything he needs. He is ungrateful. He avoids her when he can and when he can't, he ignores her. He speaks to her disrespectfully; he does not make requests, he gives commands. But she loves him unconditionally. Her virtue is unchallenged.

Mija is passionate. Her daughter observes that she likes flowers and says odd things, that a poetry class is appropriate. Her poetry teacher describes the poet's perfect moment: a sharpened pencil wavering over a blank piece of paper. She speaks out in class: “I used to be good at sharpening pencils.” Another day, having found it difficult to write, she speaks out again: “When does poetic inspiration come?” The teacher answers as best as he can.

Assembled with the fathers of her grandson's close friends, Mija learns that her grandson is a rapist. A girl in his school, Agnes, recently committed suicide, and her diary indicates six students repeatedly raping her until her death. Mija's grandson is one of the students. Now she can write. She notes the colour of a nearby flower: Blood red. The men think she is clueless. But in fact, the bad news is her first clue.

Mija is faced with two objectives. Mija's poetry teacher administers a single assignment: Write one poem. This is her first objective. She has one month to do this. Meanwhile, so that her grandson and her grandson's friends can be free of punishment and that the school can secure its reputation, Mija is asked to come up with 5,000,000 won, one sixth of an amount deemed appropriate by the five fathers to compensate Agnes' mother. This is difficult for her not only because she does not have the money, but also because she did not explicitly agree that such a compensation is appropriate. Her opinion does not seem to matter. Compensating Agnes' mother becomes her second objective.

These two objectives, comprising two main story arcs, are beautifully woven into each other; for Mija engages in a series of actions, and we are challenged to decide which objective each action is a step toward. Each action seems to be a step toward one of the two, but there is an extent to which, it can be argued in every case, an action is a step toward both. She attends Agnes' funeral. She wants to pay respects to Agnes' family. Overwhelmed with pity and shame, she cannot stay. Perhaps now she has more to write about. She visits the bridge off of which Agnes jumped. On the shore of the river below, she takes out her notebook, opens it to an empty page. She seeks poetic inspiration, but Agnes is on her mind. What is the right thing to do? What is just? We see her actions, but her heart remains a mystery. The film is like poetry itself: beautiful and ambiguous.

There is no music in the film, except when characters play it themselves. This is a move in filmmaking that cannot be made without strong writing and directing. The sound effects and sound mixing are notably superb. The sounds of running water, rustling foliage and various insects dominate the soundtrack when Mija wanders through the Korean landscape. At the tail end of another Canadian winter, I was happy to experience such a warm climate.

The film is regrettably the only film by Lee Chang-dong I have seen. The film won the Best Screenplay award at the Cannes Festival, and it won the Best Director and Best Actress awards at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Perhaps, due to its severely limited release, the film did not qualify as a 2010 release and so was not within the scope of the Academy's Best Foreign Language Film award. The film is being shown now in selected theatres in the United States. It deserves attention.

This film evidences a great talent. This is Chang-dong's fifth film. I am four films behind. For each of his films, he is credited as both writer and director. I suspect that his other films are made with a similar style and an equal amount of craftsmanship. They appear to have had significant critical acclaim. He is a filmmaker worth catching up on and watching out for.