Poetry
Really, poetry is the film’s biggest “weakness”. Actually I probably shouldn’t say it’s the film’s weakness, because it makes sense on an objective level. It is rather that I have such little understanding or capability of appreciating poetry that most of the film escaped me on an emotional level. I understand that an apricot fallen to the ground may be beautiful and prompt you to see beauty in the small things in life, but how that translates into poems I absolutely don’t know. Every single poem in the film was totally uncomprehensible to me. If I write “The cat is sleeping in my bed / I want to throw a cough drop at him”, is that a poem? Why would it not be? More importantly, how do poems convey anything? To me, the ones presented in this film mostly sound unintelligible. (On a side note, I do like stories written in verses, or poems which have a clear distinct message but packed into linguistically beautiful metaphors. It’s probably mostly the modern ones I don’t get behind.)
Having explained this hurdle, I am tempted to compare the experience of this film to “Secret Sunshine”. Both films have a similar atmosphere and both films managed to draw me in throughout their entire course. This effect was even stronger in “Poetry”, which leads me to believe that some of its aspects represent a bigger artistic achievement than Lee Chang-dong was able to get with “Secret Sunshine”. Even though I had a good feeling about what was going to happen in the film, it was drawing me in and no matter how slow the scenes were, I could not avert my eyes. “Poetry” is definitely much more of a mood piece than “Secret Sunshine” was, and almost contained no humor very much unlike “Secret Sunshine”. Even if I may not quite understand the point of those poems we see in the film nor the almost absurd childhood stories of the poetry class students, I was fascinated by the desperation and grace of the main character. She is certainly a chic lady and pretending to be cheerful, all the while hiding her inner turmoil and showing her displeasure with the world with something as quiet as walking out of a meeting. That character is the anchorpoint of the film – when she walks around, I feel reminded of Jeanne Moreau in “Ascenseur pour l’échafaud”. (The comparison is not so great – while Yang Mija is a progressive female character, Jeanne Moreau’s character is mostly portrayed a pretty face to look at whose character can be described by “is in love with some guy other than her husband”.) These female leads have an incredible presence on screen, and the emotions they show in their role should be as iconic as Maria Falconetti’s Joan of Arc.
As a story, “Poetry” seems to have much less of it than “Secret Sunshine” but in my book it is the more interesting one. While “Secret Sunshine” has some side elements such as Song Kang-ho’s pursuit of the woman he loves, everything in “Poetry” either happens to set the mood or to further the straightforward storyline. They could easily have worked in some more funny elements, such as giving the vulgar police officer a bigger role as comedic relief. But that is not the point of the story. The way the story is written give it a bigger an impact, because we see in depth how Yang Mija struggles with her grandson who hides an atrocious crime behind his dumb face.
I appreciate the intenseness of the film, but overall I don’t think “Poetry” and I mesh well together due to all these poetic elements I simply don’t understand. But I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who likes Lee Chang-dong’s films or slow Korean dramas in general, it is a well-written film and has an absolutely stunning main character.