Friday, February 4, 2011
PHOTOS |
COMING SOON|
EXAMINER.COM FILM ARTICLES
||HOME
Friday, February 4, 2011
The Housemaid
(Hanyo)
Doomed Spirits And
Domesticity? A Scarlet F Is For...
A scene from "The Housemaid", starring Do-yeon Jeon (left) in the
title role as Eun-yi, in the drama directed by Sang-soo Im.
IFC Films
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
FOLLOW
Friday,
February 4, 2011
Enter a wacked-out, near bloodless mansion. Work there. Clean your
employer's underwear. And resist your boss as he or she tries to pull your
own underwear down (preceded by a glass of delicious red wine.) "The
Housemaid (Hanyo)", directed by Sang-soo Im, isn't quite as simplistic or as surface as
that, but this giddy, tantalizing artsy-horror movie from South Korea entertains
these situations. Ornate, pulsing with tension and eroticism, the film is based
on its chilly, forerunning 1960 namesake directed by Ki-young Kim.
Like the original, the new film, which expanded its release today in the U.S.,
is a study of class and hierarchy. The film behaves counter to the way its
materially-confectioned players do: pristine, orderly and rigid. At the
film's heart: a Cinderella-type fairy tale gone wrong. "The Housemaid"
opens powerfully. Later, there's an undefined presence in the mansion.
We surmise that the early event relates
to the inhabitants of the creepy palace of dysfunction.
A housemaid, Eun-yi (Do-yeon Jeon, in last year's "Secret Sunshine") is hired to
clean, cook and look after an opulent and obstinate
family headed by Hoon (Jung-Jae Lee). Eun-yi gets pulled into the personal affairs of her
employers. Does she want what they have?
She doesn't covet or crave, but she doesn't resist when opportunity knocks on
her door, either. None of those in the house appear to be happy people,
and the film's claustrophobic trappings highlight this. Rarely does "The
Housemaid" venture outside the splendored mansion's walls.
Stylish, spare and disciplined, the film's tonal shifts are sudden yet lurk
in the background. Overhead points of
view suggest a hovering, watchful spirit. Much of the film is
punctuated by efficient shot-making, employing some of the Dardenne brothers
("The Son") style of close-ups of the back of the head, throwing you into
apprehension of what is to come. The director utilizes politeness,
sometimes keeping a slight distance from the sheltered individuals. When
the camera encroaches it does so with close-ups of
icy, harsh figures. "The Housemaid" takes
its bottled-up disdain for the staid proceedings and frostiness it displays and unleashes
it through its
foremost figure.
Do-yeon Jeon as Eun-yi, in "The
Housemaid", directed by Sang-soo Im.
IFC Films
"The Housemaid" flaunts its graceful
qualities, qualities making its drama both disquieting and devastating.
It mixes its art-house decor with discreet, subtle strains of horror, rooting
us to a story about vacant, unredeemable cold hearts. Hoon, a businessman plays
piano, listens to Madame Butterfly and tires of meaningless bouts of sex with
his pregnant wife, who has twins on the way. A rigorous, even defiant
pretense pervades the home. There's an unsurprising boredom and lack of
animation in the people who live a robustly stable economic life.
Genre-wise "The Housemaid" sets up great
opportunities to capitalize on films like "Rosemary's Baby", "The Omen" and
others, hewing mostly to Mr. Polanski's end of the spectrum with the
psychological torment and twists that make it more impressive.
Though Eun-yi is painfully naive, her destination feels engineered to achieve its most powerful moment, and nothing more.
Mr. Sang-soo reaches for symbolism and metaphor to resolve his twisty, tense
story but what has preceded
in Eun-yi is a largely modest, if not empty, shell of a character. The other
players in Mr. Sang-soo's drama are empty-hearted but
have fuller definitions as characters. We know their designs and desires.
Until the halfway mark we gain little understanding of Eun-yi's aspirations. She exists as an ornamental pleasure, a tablet
onto which others project their flaws, insecurities and perversions.
The film surveys its sexual politics well, presenting generations of women
repressed by men, but whom orchestrate their own sins against their fellow
sisterhood. The film's overtures
about domesticity and its perks or pains are expressed in themes of a Madonna/whore/ice queen complex that are felt more than explicitly revealed.
We feel the tension of these personalities and themes clashing. They are
symbolized in one superbly executed shot in the film.
"The Housemaid" is adept at keeping you off balance. Some things you
surmise. Others you don't. Its carefully crafted atmosphere builds
discomfort, suspense and sustained dread. The film works, even if some of
its scenarios don't. The oft-stereotyped anti-social rich adults
displayed here have the pulse of gold dust but their only child Nami (Seo-Hyeon
Ahn)
has the precociousness we've come to expect at the movies. She may be
the sole bright hope the family (and this film) has. You wonder whether
Nami
can survive this vacant, conniving group of adults.
"The Housemaid" is an enduring, haunting pleasure. Its temperature is
chilly despite its moderate sexual heat, but always engaging.
The director has his last laughs with a campy, satirical finale, but not
before hellish anger ensues. Scorn indeed.
With: Seo Woo, Yeo-Jeong Yoon, Ji-Young Park.
"The Housemaid" is not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America.
The film contains violence, disturbing scenes and strong sexual content.
The film is in the Korean language with English subtitles. The film's
running time is one hour and 47 minutes.
FOLLOW
SUBSCRIBE TO THE POPCORN REEL MOVIE
REVIEWS RSS FEED
