Lee Chang-dong deserves the Best Screenplay Award at Cannes for this work. Looking at the title of the film, I think it is a story full of poetry, but it is not; although the film has obvious clues to describe the narrative of the heroine learning to write poetry, this is not a story about ordinary people becoming poets. Li Cangdong's script always integrates the protagonist's experience with social reality, gradually revealing social problems such as moral corruption, dehumanization, and discrimination against women in a calm tone. Similar to the previous "Miryang", the protagonist of this film is also a woman, but this elegant old lady is neither the victim nor the direct perpetrator. The perspective of this character chosen by the director is very interesting and quite crucial. She has a detached relationship with the entire tragic story. From an indifferent observer at first, when she later learned that the incident was related to her grandson, she gradually became passively involved in the narrative advancement, because the director arranged for her a complete story throughout. Plot: Writing and writing poetry. The two clues start out as parallel lines that do not interfere with each other, but gradually they continue to intersect in simple and casual plots. This kind of screenwriting technique that hides the mystery under the flow of quiet life has a lot of Hou Hsiao-hsien implications. Li Cangdong skillfully juxtaposes two lives in the real world of the heroine: the pursuit of a beautiful ideal (a metaphor of poetry) and the complexity of human nature. dark corners. While she was struggling to capture the inspiration for poetry, she seemed to be constantly witnessing the truth of the world and the world around her. The scenes where she appeared successively in the school playground, laboratory, bridge and riverside are full of double meanings. On the one hand, she seems to be completing the homework for the poetry class in order to obtain the inspiration for writing poetry, and on the other hand, it is more like atonement for her grandson. Experience what happened to the victim again. This calm expression makes this seemingly simple social news story intriguing, with casual details like the occasional ripples on a calm lake, the heroine's love for flowers, and meeting the victim's mother in an orchard. , playing badminton with the police, etc. These constantly evocative details make the work more realistic and critical, and the open ending makes people more contemplative and thoughtful.
View more about Poetry reviews
