Poetry

Eccentric older lady Mija lives in a peaceful town with her grandson, a teenager whose main interests are the TV and his mobile phone. Good-natured Mija also stoically looks after a grouchy elderly invalid. She hardly seems bothered when her doctor says she is showing the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. On an impulse, she signs up for a poetry course: her dream is to write a poem, just once in her life. She becomes so immersed in this new goal that the bitterly harsh reality of her grandson’s life seems to completely pass her by.
In his fifth feature film, Lee Chang-Dong shows a milder side to his personality, choosing poetry above provocation. The film also marks the comeback, after a sixteen-year absence, of leading lady of Korean cinema Yun Jung-Hee; an actress capable of conveying the thoughts and feelings of her characters with nothing more than a glance. The unworldly character she plays here is the soul of this subtle melodrama.

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