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Join us on June 23 at 1 p.m. for our weekly Sunday screening series, featuring director Park Chan-Wook’s sublime erotic thriller “The Handmaiden” (2016) in digital projection.
THE HANDMAIDEN| 2016 | DIRECTOR: Park Chan-Wook | WITH: Kim Min-hee, Ha Jung-woo, Cho Jin-woong | RUNNING TIME: 2H 25M | UNRATED contains sexual situations, nudity, brief violence, strong adult themes | DIGITAL PROJECTION
In 1930s Korea, during the Japanese occupation, a young woman is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress who lives a secluded life on a large countryside estate with her domineering uncle. But the maid has a secret. She is a pickpocket recruited by a swindler posing as a Japanese Count to help him seduce the Lady to elope with him, rob her of her fortune, and lock her up in a madhouse. The plan seems to proceed according to plan until the two women discover some unexpected emotions.
“Sookee, a former pickpocket, is secretly working for a scam artist who passes himself off as a rich Japanese count. Their plan is to make a young heiress fall in love with him so he can marry her, lock her away in an asylum and run off with her vast fortune. The heiress has thieves to the left of her, creepers to the right, and for the first 30 minutes of “The Handmaiden,” you fear nothing but calamity is heading her way.
“Then director Park Chan-wook pulls off his first reveal — one of the countless twists this sensual, gorgeously depraved movie springs on you. Almost all of Park’s previous pictures (“Old Boy,” “Stoker,” “Lady Vengeance”) relied on the element of surprise to weave their corrosive magic. But “The Handmaiden” throws so many narrative curves at you that the film becomes a cinematic puzzle-box, with secrets nestled within secrets within secrets.
“Discovering them is huge fun. So is watching this grand, elegant movie, which finds Park in an unusually sunny mood. The story’s themes — the victims of colonialism, the oppression between classes, the damage wrought by cultural sexism — are serious. But they’re served up in a movie that makes its playful intentions obvious early on, then starts batting the audience around in unexpected directions.
“The film is best approached cold, its turns of plot unspoiled. But more timid viewers should know Park has never been shy about depicting graphic sexuality in his work, and he outdoes himself with “The Handmaiden,” in which carnality plays such an important role it deserves its own screen credit.
‘“The Handmaiden” hails from South Korea, but compared to most American movies of its scale and budget, it might as well have been made on another planet. This may not be Park’s best or gravest picture. But it might be his most entertaining.’ — Rene Rodriguez, The Miami Herald
The screening will be introduced by Bill Cosford Cinema manager Rene Rodriguez. Tickets are $5 and available at link above. Students use code UMSTUDENT at checkout for free admission. Cane card must be shown at the door.
