An ageing woman continues to pursue a newfound passion for writing poetry after she finds out her obnoxious grandson contributed to the suicide of a local girl.
Yun Jeong-hie is absolutely superb as the hard up, widely belittled but proud lady with a childlike curiosity of the world around her and an ingrained sense of family duty. The film is long and slow moving but that doesn’t matter too much as Yun is so watchable and, working with an impressive script, conveys so many emotional layers through actions alone.
Released in its home country over a year ago and screened at the London Film Festival in October, Poetry has received widespread acclaim. Rightly so. Korea has a habit of consistently producing quality films like few other countries and, with some passing similarities to last year’s wonderful Mother, this is another nuanced, bleak, but exquisite example.
31st Jul 2011 | Official site | On IMDb
