Actresses / <여배우들> 2009

Directed by: Lee Jae-yong / 이재용
Release date: December 2009

Six top Korean actresses (playing themselves!) assemble for a fashion photo shoot on Christmas Eve (the rest of the cast are photography studio staff, also playing themselves). What happens when six potential prima donnas are thrown together? The actresses preen, get snarky some, then let their hair down.

An interesting concept for a film: How much is scripted? How much is the actresses being themselves? The film comes together, well-paced but playfully. My take: CCC

When the fashion shoot stalls, the actresses treat

themselves to an impromptu Christmas Eve party.

Poetry / <시> 2010

Directed by: Lee Chang-dong / 이창동
Release date: May 2010

Sixty-six year old Mija is just managing to scrape by on a pension and the money she makes taking care of a disabled man. She is raising her grandson, a surly high-school student, with no help from her divorced daughter who lives far away. Mija has always followed a different drummer and now decides to take a class in writing poetry. The instructor’s advice on learning to really see and to appreciate the beauty in the everyday all around will serve her well as life is about to throw some major troubles her way. My take: CCC

Mija (Yoon Jung-hee / 윤정희, right) enters a world of blue and gold in this sequence when she visits a café for amateur poetry-reading night. For her, poetry is an entrée into another world, one that is sustaining.