Rating: 4/5
Criterion Challenge 2024 | 8/52 | Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project
A rosy dream can't bloom in late Autumn when frost forms.
On a rainy evening, the Kim sits together inside — the children, Chang-soon and Ae-soon, play with a string figure, the mother (unnamed) sews, and the father, Dong-sik, reads the newspaper. He shows his wife the headline about a man sleeping with his housemaid. She is dismissive of why someone would fall for a maid. He argues that the maid is what holds the house together.
Seon-young Kwak and Kyeung-Hee Cho prepare a letter to give to the piano accompanist, Mr. Kim, of their choir group. The letter is a confession of love. Miss Cho slips the letter under the keyboard cover.
Mr. Kim offers piano lessons to the group before opening the cover. Upon finding the letter, he turns it in, which inspires Miss Kwak to quit.
Miss Cho sees her off and then goes to Mr. Kim’s for piano lessons. He shows her the new house he and his wife are moving into. With that, his overworked and pregnant wife, the house is in disarray. Mr. Kim asks Miss Cho to find a housemaid. She asks Myung-sook, one of her coworkers.
After a family holiday leaves Mr. Kim at home with Myung-soon and Miss Cho, Miss Cho finally confesses that she is the one who loves him, not Miss Kwak.
The cinematography is beautiful. The camera moves elegantly in scenes. It finds little motifs, like hands on the piano.
A man wrote this movie. It’s all about women bringing down an “upstanding” man for not giving them what they want — basically, a long way around to make him “innocent.”
The rat is a recurring motif for Kyeung-Hee and Myung-sook. It isn’t subtle — Mrs. Kim has a dream where the rats have human faces.
If you don’t like melodrama, this movie won’t do much for you. But if you can embrace the ridiculousness, it’s a wild ride.
This is the prototype for the erotic thriller.
THE ENDING! I died