Poetry (Shi)

Dir: Lee Chang-dong

2010

*****

Poetry's greatest achievement is that is raises many questions while it avoids answering them, the downfall for many a film but perfectly handled here thanks to writer and director Lee Chang-dong and his enigmatic mastery. It an exploration of the disorder of life and a look at modern society in comparison to the old ways - that aren't that much better - and vice versa. These slices of life are studied so delicately and so subtly, the film is almost like Poetry itself. Everything good that happens and everything bad that happens is, to a degree, a matter of opinion but how we view the world and each other is key in this masterful tale by master storyteller Lee Chang-dong. Jeong-hie Yun's performance is tender and understated and is probably my favourite performance of 2010, if not of all time. The story opens at a river where we see children playing on the bank. The body of a girl in a school uniform floats by. Yang Mi-ja (Yoon Jeong-hee), a 66-year-old grandmother, consults a doctor at a hospital who is concerned about her forgetfulness, referring her to a specialist. As she leaves the hospital she sees a woman manic with grief because her 16-year-old daughter has drowned. Though Mi-ja lives on government welfare, she has a small job taking care of a well-to-do elderly man who has had a stroke. At home, she cares for her ill-mannered 16-year-old grandson, Jong-wook (Lee David), whose divorced mother lives in Busan. When Mi-ja asks Wook about the girl from his class who drowned, Wook insists that he doesn't know her. When Mi-ja notices a poster advertising a poetry class at a local community center, she decides to enroll. The course assignment is to write one poem by the end of the month-long course. At the suggestion of her teacher, she begins writing notes about the things she sees, especially flowers. Wook frequently leaves home at odd hours to socialize with five other boys from school. One night, he invites all of them over without notifying Mi-ja, who nevertheless tries to be a gracious host, offering them a snack before they disappear into Wook's bedroom. Later, one of the boys' fathers insists that Mi-ja join him and the other boys' fathers for a meeting. She is told that the group of boys have repeatedly raped a girl, Agnes, over the past six months, before she jumped off a bridge into a river and drowned. Her diary was discovered, though only four members of the school's faculty are aware of the situation. The fathers fear retribution for their boys, and the school fears a scandal that will tarnish its reputation. In order to avert a full police investigation, the parents of the boys offer to pay a settlement of 30 million won to the widowed mother, a poor farmer. Mi-ja, who cannot afford her 5 million won portion of the payment, is pressured to ask her daughter (Wook's mother) for the money. Though Mi-ja occasionally speaks to her daughter on the phone, she does not mention the situation. When Mi-ja is diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer's disease, she again neglects to tell anyone. She attempts to confront Wook about his actions, but he simply ignores her. Mi-ja begins attending a local weekly poetry reading. A brash man frequently reads beautiful poetry at these readings, but follows them with crude sexual jokes that offend Mi-ja. Another amateur poet explains to Mi-ja that the man is a policeman with a good heart, and was recently reassigned from Seoul after exposing corruption within its police force. Mi-ja temporarily quits her job caring for the elderly stroke victim after he makes a desperate sexual advance toward her. She later returns after a journey to the bridge where Agnes jumped, and her hat flies off into the water. She walks down to the riverbank and sits, writing poetry until it begins raining. Dripping wet, she returns to the elderly man, agreeing to have sex with him. When she does, she appears emotionless. In another meeting with the fathers, Mi-ja is elected to travel to the countryside to convince Agnes' mother to accept the settlement. Initially not finding her at home, Mi-ja eventually comes across her working in the field. Mi-ja begins raving about how beautiful the weather, flowers, trees, and fruit are, forgetting about the task at hand. The two have a pleasant exchange before Mi-ja turns and begins to walk away. Finally, she remembers that she was meant to confront the woman about the settlement, but is too embarrassed and continues to leave. A few days later, Mi-ja returns to the fathers to admit that she still cannot pay her portion of the settlement. Though annoyed that she still hasn't contributed her sum, the fathers are overjoyed that Agnes' mother has agreed to settle, despite Mi-ja's failure to confront her. Mi-ja asks the elderly man for the money she needs, refusing to tell him what it is for. Wondering if this is Mi-ja's attempt at extortion, he pays her. Once the settlement has been paid to Agnes' mother, Mi-ja phones her daughter to come home, and insists that Wook shower and cut his nails. That night, the crude policeman from the weekly poetry readings appears with his partner to take Wook away. Mi-ja does not protest. The film concludes with Mi-ja's poetry teacher discovering a bouquet of flowers on the class podium with her poem, "Agnes's Song", but Mi-ja herself is not present. Her daughter returns to an empty home, and calls Mi-ja's phone, but receives no answer. The teacher begins to read Mi-ja's poem to the class. Mi-ja speaks in voice-over, though the voice of Agnes herself takes over midway through, following Agnes from the science lab, where she was raped, to the bus, to the bridge where she is to jump. Agnes turns to the camera, half-smiling, leaving Mi-ja's fate on an ambiguous note. In many respects the film feels like a visualisation of the phrase ‘Don’t forget to stop and smell the flowers’ but it also feels like a reminder that you can never walk away from duty or escape inevitability. You can address your responsibilities as well as smell the flowers, even with the shadow of horror upon you. Life is like poetry, poetry is a small piece of captured life and life, and thus poetry, is a collection of all things, whether they be bad or good. Lee Chang-dong has an amazing way of exploring such subjects through the most unusual and often dark corners of life. There is horror and there is beauty, again, there are no answers but plenty of food for thought.