Rent Poetry (2010)
4.0 of 5 from 186 ratings
2h 13min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- An elderly lady in her 60's Yang Mija (Yun Junghee) works as a carer for a disabled man and she also raises her grandson alone. She has to endure the onset of Alzheimer's disease and also learns that her grandson was one of the attackers of a junior high school girl that committed suicide. Through all of tins and to fulfil her lifelong dream of becoming a poet the elderly woman starts to take a poetry class and starts writing...
- Actors:
- Jeong-hie Yun, Da-wit Lee, Hira Kim, Nae-sang Ahn, Myeong-shin Park, Yong-taek Kim
- Directors:
- Chang-dong Lee
- Producers:
- Joon-dong Lee
- Writers:
- Chang-dong Lee
- Others:
- Lee Chang-Dong
- Aka:
- Shi
- Studio:
- Arrow Films
- Genres:
- Drama
- Collections:
- New waves of Korean Cinema, What to watch by country
- Countries:
- Korea
- Awards:
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 28/11/2011
- Run Time:
- 139 minutes
- Languages:
- Korean DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
- Subtitles:
- English
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 1.85:1
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- (0) All
- Bonus:
- Audio commentary with director Lee Chang-dong and critic Kim Young-jin
- The making of Poetry
- Onset with Lee Chang-dong and Yun Junghee
- The legendary actress: Yun Junghee
- Interview with Nae-sang Ahn
- Korean theatrical trailer
- UK theatrical trailer
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Reviews (1) of Poetry
A Quiet Kind of Devastating - Poetry review by griggs
Thirty minutes in, a group of fathers are sat round a table in this scrappy little restaurant, and it just lands like a punch you didn't see coming. The trouble is I'm watching Mi-ja's face the whole time, not the men talking, and that's the whole trick of the scene right there. Lee Chang-dong doesn't need anyone to raise their voice for the floor to drop out.
Yoon Jeong-hee hadn't made a film in sixteen years before this, and she carries the whole thing on a kind of distracted grace. Mi-ja is losing words to dementia at exactly the moment she's discovering poetry, which sounds like it could be unbearably neat on paper. It isn't. The poetry class stuff could've tipped into twee very easily; instead it teaches her, and by extension us, how to actually look at things. That becomes the real engine once the moral weight kicks in.
Tonally this is controlled to the point of austerity, no swelling music to cue your tears or big confrontation scene to mark the moment. Just Mi-ja quietly doing the rounds of everyone involved, including her own grandson, while the men around her would rather the whole thing got tidied away and forgotten. It's a slow film, and Lee asks a fair amount of patience for it; some of the procedural back-and-forth with the other fathers drags a touch in the middle.
The final stretch does something hard to shake, and I know I will keep thinking about that scene over the coming days.
Quiet, devastating, and never once raises its voice to get there.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Critic review
Poetry (aka Shi) review by Alyse Garner - Cinema Paradiso
Poetry is a South Korean drama about a woman’s struggle to understand her place in the world as she battles with Alzheimer’s; she lives hand to mouth on government welfare and struggles to deal with her insolent grandson, however almost on a whim she finds herself joining a writers group as she develops an interest in poetry: here her courage and personal resolve are strengthened, which is all for the good considering the painful decision that awaits at the film’s close.
Poetry manages to be both tragic and uplifting; whilst the lead Mija (Yun Jeong-hie in her first role in fifteen years) finds her life falling apart around her the film retains a sense of control and patience so severe it almost verges on restrained. Yet somehow this works for the film, as the beauty and grace of the creativity and courage of Mija, supported by Jeong-hie’s excellent performance, help to keep you entangled in the drama.
The darker aspects of the movie are disturbing enough to truly tear at you, yet their actual on screen appearance lacks something; they come across as little more than your everyday villainous character, lacking any strong sense of identity – which is unfortunate considering that all the elements for a truly heartbreaking character sit within the film’s plot, yet somehow the acting fails to bring that to life.
The film is rescued at its climax by the achingly painful and beautiful poem that Mija has constructed after the devastating events of the last few weeks. The words genuinely almost brought a tear to my eye and to see Jeong-hie read them with such an air of tragic grace was truly moving.