The film is a South Korean production helmed by director Chan-wook Park, known mostly in America as the director of 'Oldboy.' People often say that foreign films demonstrate a higher quality in comparison to the stuff of Hollywood; that stories are daring and the craft is not as pressured by executives who would rather turn a profit than make something truly substantial. Did they ever get it right.
The movie is a period piece that is lush in costumes and sets. Each new shot paints a picture on the screen that simply pulls one into the world of South Korea in the 1930's. The cinematography, a lush landscape of vibrant hues and meticulous staging, keeps us engaged as though by hypnotism. The story follows three people, each scheming in their own right, telling the audience information that might only be a passing thought in their mind. In the simplest form, the story is of a conman who hopes to rob a wealthy woman (Lady Hideko) of her inheritance by feigning love with her and posing as a Count. Once married, he will find her mentally unsound and throw her in a mental institution, leaving him to bask in a newfound fortune. In order to make the most of his plan, he sends a maid (another con artist named Sook-Hee) to infiltrate the Lady's home and gain information and insight into the mind of the woman.
The film opens with a scene of forgers and thieves who meet to hear the "Count's" plan. He runs a business of sorts, forging money, legal papers, and jewelry. He promises them a cut of the fortune assuming they can help pass himself off as a man of means. Sook-Hee, for her troubles, is promised $50,000 and a new wardrobe once Hideko is institutionalized. She is a simple girl, illiterate, but the prospects are insatiable.
In the night, she takes a car ride down the coastline to the estate of Lady Hideko, a grand estate built in two parts: one half designed as though an English mansion, and another half in traditional Japanese style. It's truly East meets West, and the blatant metaphor of clashing cultures and ideas only becomes more potent as the story progresses.
Lady Hideko lives on the estate with her elderly uncle, a man who uses an ink pen so fervently that his tongue is stained black. He is a collector of antique literature and texts which are entirely erotic in nature, and uses Hideko to recite the texts to potential buyers who frequent the mansion in hopes of bidding on what is essentially pornography. We learn about her past, raised by her Uncle in a disciplinarian manner, losing her aunt to a suicide as a child, and an eternal fear of ever leaving the confines of the estate. For Sook-Hee, the innocent maid come to spy on her, it might already seem like a mental institute is not too far off.
As these two women begin to know each other, they become friendly, with Hideko using Sook-Yee to model her clothes and confine dark secrets in the privacy of her room. Sook-Yee, who sees the potential wealth she will soon inherit, seems hypnotized by the beauty of her boss, and in some of the most beautiful moments of glances and gestures, we can see a dark romance forming between the two women.
The story is broken up into three parts, and to venture in even discussing the array of twists and turns would do no favors to the structure of the story, so expertly-written and brilliant that at any one time we may have flashbacks within flashbacks told simply to act as footnote to a line of dialogue or interpret the actions of a character. Never are we lost or in over our heads; this is a masterpiece of story and style. In fact, Part 2 nearly replays the entire first act of the film but through the perspective of an entirely different character. Scenes are repeated in their entirety and yet the insight we gain only leads towards understanding of the next moment, and the next...
The movie is based on an English crime novel called "Fingersmith," and we can see how this story could easily be (at first glance) a serial crime novel with a predictable plot. The story is tense at times and deeply erotic at others, showing these two women in moments of ultimate vulnerability and strength, sometimes in the same instance. I would expect many audience members to be offput by the graphic nature of several scenes, and yet I can do nothing but praise the artistic endeavors to use sex on film as a means to tell an emotional story.
The Academy Awards have created a shortlist of potential nominees for Best Foreign Film, a list that does not include 'The Handmaiden' (South Korea instead nominated a film called 'The Age of Shadows'). It's a shame that a movie as wonderful as this could be looked over, even if by technicality that a country needs to pick one film only to represent it. The soundtrack is haunting, the story compelling, the look is heavenly. I know I will see many more films as the Fall rolls along, and yet I know that when I come to make a list of my favorite films of the year, this is now the one to beat.
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