Si (2010)
Genre: Drama
Duration: 139 minuten
Alternative titles: Poetry / 시 / Shi
Country:
South Korea
Directed by: Lee Chang-dong
Starst: Yoon Jeong-hee, Lee Da-wit and Kim Hee-ra
IMDb score:
7,8 (14.878)
Releasedate: 13 May 2010
Si plot
An elderly woman begins to suffer from Alzheimer's disease and also faces a family problem; her grandson, a teenager under her responsibility, is accused of assaulting a girl in his class with a group of boys, who later committed suicide.
Actors and actresses
Yang Mi-ja
Jong-wook
Elder Kang
Ki-beom's Father
Poet
Hee-jin's Mother
Mr. Kang's Second Daughter-in-Law
Soo-ok
Park Sang-tae
Jo Mi-hye
Reviews & comments
Fisico
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- 10039 messages
- 5398 votes
Following the beautiful Burning that I recently saw, I also sniffed out other work by Chang-dong Lee. Poetry is a beautiful, serene film about a South Korean woman who increasingly suffers from her failing memory. This is often expressed in the film as "not being able to find the right word". Yet she decides to take a poetry writing course in high school because it can help her, despite the fact that she has little feeling for the subject matter.
"Poetry is searching for the right way of seeing." The film is a search for beauty, beauty in the little things in life. She does not see this and she tries to escape from reality. Especially when she is confronted with a terrible event that her grandson who lives at home is responsible for. This event is not central to the film, but it does determine Mija's behavior. And you can also question the attitude of the other fathers. You don't know what else happens to the other sons, but in the search for a 'compromise' you can ask yourself whether everything is okay morally. Although, shouldn't we all protect our children as much as possible, regardless of the fact that they should not avoid their responsibility?
The film has a slow and serene pace that increases to a climax towards the end. Nice role by Jeong-hie Yun. Although I didn't get completely involved in the story, it was still one worth thinking about. Decent 3.5*!
Translated from Dutch · View original
De filosoof
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- 2544 messages
- 1743 votes
Following Beoning (2018), which made a big impression on me, I saw this earlier film by Lee. This is also a beautiful, poetic film in Lee's typical style (I do think that the images are less beautiful and poetic than in Beoning, but it has its own memorable scene with, say, the bath scene) and in that respect it already lives up to the title. .
Coincidentally, I saw The Kindergarten Teacher (2018) before this, which, like Poetry, is about a woman who takes a poetry class, but where I read The Kindergarten Teacher a failed poem, this film is a successful poem: the film lets us in, as it were the person Mija crawls and although the film, like Beoning, moves along calmly and is a bit boring (just like Mija, Lee is not one for big gestures, except for the end of the film), the film does get under your skin and the film remains exciting (because how is Mija going to solve the problem?) and also mysterious in a psychological way because there is clearly much more going on in Mija than she shows. The theme is also interesting and comparable to that of Beoning: the film is about the loss of youth and memory, but also about the loss of lives, with Mija almost literally walking around as if she has lost herself. And so also about forgetting, but we can and may forget things or leave them behind (in that respect Mija is the only person in the film who does not suffer from - a moral kind - Alzheimer's, but who perceives reality like a real poet and who also faces morally)?
An ample four stars.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Filmkriebel
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- 10133 messages
- 4740 votes
If only because of Yoon Jeong-hee's beautiful acting, a 3.5* for this complex psychological drama, in which poetry is a way to express feelings that otherwise cannot be expressed. Still, I didn't feel like everything was right in that film. There are three storylines connected, but there are gaps in how they are connected. For example, Mi-Ja only has an early form of Alzheimer's, where she forgets words but still has a sense of direction and does not get lost. She lives with her grandson, a slacker who leads a "hotel grandma" life; he is accused of rape and murder together with several other young people. I didn't find the way she deals with that grandson realistic because it cannot actually be traced back to Alzheimer's. She continues to treat him like a big toddler. The passive manner and indifference about this whole thing translates her inability to deal with her emotions, but I found it a weakening rather than a strengthening element. The poetry sessions also took me out of the film a bit. In my experience, I was left with some open questions, such as why she still has sex with that disabled man, or why she just accepts compensation that she can never pay...
For a film that won such a mountain of awards, it could have been a bit more for me.
Translated from Dutch · View originalLatest News
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