At that thing they have in May in Cannes – oh, yeah, the film festival – I saw this movie from the country beneath North Korea – what do they call it? Oh, yeah: South Korea – with a really lovely title. That form of writing with special word images and rhymes – oh, yeah: Poetry.
Suppose your daily perception of the world was like the Alzheimer's addled first paragraph of this review. That's the creeping condition afflicting Mija, the 66-year-old heroine of Lee Chang-dong's involving portrait of a coquettish senior citizen whose congenital decency gets the upper hand in always surprising ways.
The film's power is due, in great part, to the actress in a great part: Yun Jung-hee, as Mija. Yun has appeared in 330 movies since 1966, despite a 16-year hiatus. Yes, you read that right. She moved to Paris with her concert pianist husband and dropped her acting career. This role – which calls for Mija to battle compound adversity with flaky serenity – would have been worth returning from the dead to play. Writer-director Lee's script won the Best Screenplay award at Cannes.
Mija works part-time as a personal maid to a wealthy man left debilitated by a stroke. She bathes him and cleans his apartment. What he pays her and a government subsidy is her sole income.
Mija lives modestly with her grandson, to whom she is devoted although he is rudely dismissive of her attentions. You wouldn't think these two have any connection to the body floating face down in the water that appears in the film's opening frames, but they do.
Mija signs up for a continuing education course in poetry at the local cultural centre. By the end of the course, each participant is expected to have written a poem. Mija finds herself losing words in her daily life (terms like "wallet" and "electricity" can't even be said to dwell on the tip of her tongue), but gains others as she jots down observations about her surroundings.
Effortlessly gripping and utterly convincing, Poetry never tips over from earned pathos into maudlin territory although Mija has enough problems to stock several melodramas. She needs to come up with a substantial amount of money on a tight deadline, but is so easily distracted by beauty that she acts, well, stoned. It's rarely clear whether she's completely in charge of her own actions and yet a sort of internal safety net seems to protect Mija from cruelty and hypocrisy.
As the film winds up its keenly layered narrative, we're left with the impression that a core of lucidity has been guiding Mija, but may soon abandon her. If life is a battle where people expect to smooth over even the most severe transgressions with money, Mija's only weapons are compassion and kindness. This makes Mija rich indeed.
