Poetry

Through Film Twitter, I was informed regarding the demise of one of South Korea's most prolific actress, Yoon Jeong-hin; who had come out of a 29 year retirement for a swan song in a Lee Chang-dong film —about an elderly woman's passion for poetry. I hadn't seen any of Yoon Jeong-hin's earlier works nor have I fully immersed myself in Lee Chang-dong's filmography. All I saw were screenshots and clips of this actress; who was clearly in command of the medium. I watched Poetry today and I am deeply moved by Jeong-hin's Mija; how despite struggling with being coherent, alternates between a child-like wonder about the natural world, driven by poetry. Like Mija in the film, Jeong-hin also suffered from Alzheimer's in real life. I'd like to think that in a way, it guided her captivating performance here. 'The true wonder of this movie is that there are two discrete plots happening throughout at virtually the same time: an elderly woman’s creative reaction to her inevitable cognitive impairment, and the story of a desperate girl, victimized first by classmates and then by society. Either might have provided the foundation for its own powerful film. In combining the two however, Lee Chang-dong’s brilliant Poetry transcends the power of either individual story and elevates the whole to a truly poetic level' — Alexandra Macaaron, 2011