So. 2022.

"Let's go to the other side. The view will be better there."

—Zula

As you might be able to tell from the previous two posts, the last couple of years have been...difficult. Not just for me, of course. I mean, Duh with a capital 'D'. Truthfully, I don't possess so much as a fifth of the mental fortitude needed to even touch on all of the pure, unadulterated shite that has gone on in the world in the span of just two years. Nor does anyone else need me to. You were there. It was and continues to be a dumpster fire. Let that be the end of it. (Please. Please.)

So then, the reason I find myself back on this ancient blog, trying to put thoughts into words despite a steadily declining desire to write, is because I want (need?) to pay my respects. And I've no fucking idea how to do that for somebody who is no longer alive, but this is the best I've got to offer.

We—that is, myself and my classmates—started these blogs because of a course at Averno College. The explainer says so right over there —> on the sidebar, and has done since day one. Looking through my old school files (which I keep but never, ever look at), it turns out that I attended 'Film Around the World' during my fifth semester as an English major. And...that class was taught by Mimi Czarnik. I'd already been a student of hers for a few years by then. In fact, she was the very first professor I ever had a class with as a painfully shy, admittedly fed-up freshman, and again almost every semester thereafter until obtaining my degree. Mimi eased me out of my shell. She managed to make me enjoy learning again following years spent at a high school that I considered a personal sort of hell. She helped to convince me that pursuing a career in a field that I enjoyed was worthwhile despite tired jokes about how useless the humanities are in today's world. She wasn't the sole reason, but she definitely held sway, probably even without realizing it.

Eventually, Mimi became my staff advisor. After passing a formal grammar class, she submitted my name so that I could get my first-ever job working on campus in the Communications Resource Center. She kept tabs on my progress as a student, ensuring that I was on track to graduate a semester early. She recommended my name for Honors, which were summarily conferred with my diploma. She gave me books. She let me read her dissertation on Transcendentalism in Victorian literature. She threatened to make a Facebook profile under my name if I didn't join up myself as a means of staying in contact post-graduation. She kicked my ass at online Scrabble so many times it was almost embarrassing.

We attended some function or other in the Commons in the fall of 2013, and as a tiny token of thanks for everything she had done for me up to that point—including making me feel like somebody whose input meant something, that my thoughts were valid and worth sharing from time to time—I presented her with a cute little cow charm to add to her collection. I bought it off of Etsy, and now I wish that I'd given her more.

Because Mimi was kind, and she helped me grow in ways I can't articulate. Her lessons about fairy tales and subversive feminist perspectives surface in my mind alongside memories of early morning bus commutes and church pews lining the hall. Dumb group projects, and reading excerpts from "The Mysteries of Udolpho." Somehow managing to hate algebra more than I did when I was a little kid and yeah, so I'd swallow my tongue whenever I gave a presentation, big whoop. Turns out that was never the end of the world. There are bigger fish.

Mimi died yesterday, and I can't even remember the last time we talked to one another. Things get in the way; you know how it goes. Seems like a shallow excuse, but I have my own mess of a life to deal with just like she did. Just like everyone does. So though this is too little, too late, I wanted to put down into at least semi-coherent words that Mimi mattered to me. She's gone, but I hope she knew that before she left.

This is a foreign film blog. Still. Technically. I wanted to make something in Mimi's memory, to...I don't know. Prove that she inspired those around her. That she made a positive impact, even if we'll never be able to grasp the extent. But I'm sitting here typing, and my head hurts from the strain of a jaw clenched tight against loss. So. Think I'll call it soon. Anyone who knew her already knows what I'm trying to say. This exercise is more therapeutic for me than anything else. Or, at least, that was part of the idea. I'm sorry that I couldn't do justice to a life so well lived. She loved to help others flourish, and I am grateful for all of it.

It always feels gross rereading anything I've written. That trait isn't exclusive to me, but yikes. It was quite a trip looking over this blog again. Every paragraph is verbose and worthy of an eyeroll. But, I must have gotten something out of it at the time. And Mimi encouraged me. So, it's fine, really. Wouldn't change a thing. I'll keep this one short:

Watch Cold War, a 2018 Polish film by Paweł Pawlikowski. It's beautiful, and it made me cry. Maybe Mimi liked it, too.

This is the last post.

Whoops. 2021.

 Annnd that year happened. Technically.

Sigh. 2020.

I forgot to write a post yesterday. 😑

Duplicity and Madness: The Handmaiden

Hooo boyyy it's already the end of 2019 and everyone is wondering where the time has gone! So, quick catch-up: I am still married, still a librarian, and—wait a hot second, this here is new—I now co-own a house. It's a fancy tri-level with a working hot water tank and everything. There are windows, and doors, and also I found this broken bust of Nefertiti in the basement that wasn't filled with drugs, so it's probably a cursed idol and I will have to deal with that at some point. All of the other things in my life are still pretty much the same, especially the whole lovin' movies thing. Oh, but I do a podcast now, which is also new. I do not have a voice meant for broadcasting, but it's fun, and part of my job, so whatever.

"I wish I'd never come here. It was wrong to come."

—Sook-hee, feeling either guilty or jealous

"I wish I'd never been born."

—Hideko, in sadness and in rage

Not rated. There's nudity, sex, violence, sweary bits, depictions of death, child abuse, etc.

Without further procrastination—because it is now the 31st of December which means that I left writing this to the last possible minute—let's talk about The Handmaiden. Inspired by Sarah Water's "Fingersmith" and directed by Park Chan-wook (who also directed Stoker and Oldboy), this film is stylistically what I'm all about. You know those films where pretty much every frame is a work of art? Yeah...Park knows his stuff. In fact...I'm going to present a series of images and let them help me tell the story. It's not because I am so out of practice that I cannot be bothered to string the narrative together with words alone. Wait, no, that's exactly why.

Sook-hee sets out on her flawed hero’s journey, leaving the dismal squalor of her home behind. We do not know anything about her other than we are super glad that she doesn’t have to spend any more of the movie in this crap-hole of a village. The story takes place during the 1930s in Korea under Japanese occupation. Occupied nations tend not to, uh…do too well, as evidenced by poverty, hunger, famine, too many babies, general oppression—you know, the usual. Three cheers for Sook-hee leaving this awful, awful place for a much brighter future! Fewer cheers for those who remain behind to take care of all those screaming babies. :(

‘Count’ Fujiwara is a con man through and through, in the game only for the money (or so he likes to tell himself). His latest scheme is to seduce an insanely rich heiress named Lady Hideko in order to marry her, obtain legal claim to her fortune, and then commit her to an asylum. To help achieve this dastardly dream, he uses the talents of Sook-hee—orphaned pickpocket mentioned above—to pose as Hideko’s new handmaiden. Sook-hee wriggles her way into Hideko’s life in order to gain the woman’s trust and use it against her, planting seeds about what a cool guy Fujiwara is: Wow yeah you should definitely marry him. BUT WAIT THERE’S A TWIST. Oh, and then another twist. Two twists? Whoa. But before we get to that…check out Fujiwara’s amazing mise-en-scène. The guy’s a poseur (huhuhu see what I did there huhu).

Sook-hee’s life is looking up! She is now living at the manor, a decadent structure with architecture that is half European-half Japanese and damn it would be pretty cool to live there if you were into having a library filled solely with ancient erotica in a room featuring rearrangeable floorboards concealing tiny...swimming pools?…and a cursed snake statue thing of which I do not fully understand the origin and/or meaning. Anywho, the manor is this dope because it belongs to Hideko’s uncle, Kouzuki, who got rich by colluding with the Japanese pre-invasion so that he might be granted rights to a gold mine. Feels bad, man. Kouzuki is straight up the worst, and you will never convince anyone otherwise. His ew factor may be off the charts, but the dude is loaded, so he owns extensive land and a few gardens. Don’t blame the gardens for his creepiness, just enjoy frolicking through the sculpted greenery like dear ol’ Sook-hee.

Here’s the library I was talking about. I’m a librarian (#secondmentionmeansitsbragging), and I like a well-organized collection with grandiose pillars 'n' shit just as much as the next person, but even I gotta admit that this room has a funky vibe. And when I say ‘funky’…turns out it is also a stage for Hikedo when she performs her…'readings'…for Uncle Kouzuke's exclusively male guests. >_>

Quick! Let’s move on to Hideko and Sook-hee’s blossoming romance! It’s not all gross weirdness, see?! I mean, it’s kind of weird because there’s a double-cross (oh, no!) and then a triple-cross (wait, really?), but if the love these two share cannot withstand the emotional repression and stifling gender-based expectations so innate in a patriarchal society during early 1900s Japanese-Korean culture, then I just don’t think that there is anything worth believing in anymore. Anyway, they both deserve better than what the world has planned for them, and gosh dang it they’re going to find a way to be happy! Hideko with her innocence and individualism stripped away at such a young age deserves happiness. Sook-hee with her personal growth and eventual redemption deserves happiness. Go get it!

Yeah alright I admit that there are some odd vibes around these two, too. Honestly, I think the mood is just used to set up some foreshadowing, but the uncertainty of what is going to happen to either of these women hangs heavy over many scenes. Check out the super suss The Double shit right here. And I don’t mean the one with Richard Gere, I mean the one by Richard Ayoade. Trivia fun fact! The film's English title is"The Handmaiden," meaning Sook-hee, but the Korean title is "The Lady," i.e., Hideko. Are they so easily interchangeable? Let's find out.

The only thing I have written down in my notes for this image is "dressed in virginal white." If I am remembering it right, this is when Count Fujiwara is seducing Lady Hideko. Soon, they will elope. Yes—they tie the knot, which is not a good thing for at least 2/3 of the parties involved.

At this point, I was getting tied up in the story, so my notes dwindle down to just a couple of words per thought. Here, I jotted down "behind glass." Thanks, past Rachel, that is super helpful. The sentiment is obvious, though: Hideko and Sook-hee are women in a time period when aesthetic beauty was aligned directly with their worth. They are groomed into sculpting themselves for the enjoyment of others, a carefully dressed display. Even Sook-hee starts out by viewing her mistress as more of an object than as a person ("Of all the things I've washed..."). But for these two, a crack is starting to spread in the glass. Oof. Metaphors were never my strength.

Forgot to mention an important part: Hideko's aunt—Kouzuki's wife—is dead, purportedly by suicide. She is said to have hanged herself from a large cherry tree within view of the manor house. Indeed, as Hideko leaves once and for all with Sook-hee to elope with the Count, they make their way across the grounds of her uncle's estate, a noose swaying from one of the tree's branches in the foreground. More like 'in the foreshadowing', amirite? Interestingly, Sook-hee tells Hideko that her own mother hanged herself...and then she giggles about it. The hell? Turns out her mother was caught stealing and was actually hanged as a punishment. "Did she cry? She laughed!" Sook-hee laughs to cover pain, too, it seems.

Hideko's aunt was one of the few people who was kind to her as she grew up, and there are a lot of parallels between them. "Did the big house make her go mad?" Mmmm, in a way, yes. The idea of insanity is toyed around with in this film in each act. Sook-hee, still conspiring with the Count to have Hideko committed after their honeymoon, fears that the poor girl "might truly go mad." Given the life that Hideko goes through, I don't see how she wouldn't lose her mind. Even as a young girl coming into womanhood under her uncle's thumb she realizes that "I was going a bit crazy," so she decided to do what she could to make those around her go crazy, too. Fair do's, kid.

Here we see Hideko and Sook-hee bonding over a book bath. Did you think that I was joking about the movable floorboards? I wouldn't deceive you like that. The snake statue is real, too. Anyway, I want to talk more about the relationship between these characters. Hideko is repressed ("He won't permit it," "He makes me," et cetera). She also has some trust issues which, holy hell, she fucking should. Everyone she has ever been exposed to betrays her in some way or another, so she tells Sook-hee outright that she can curse and steal but that she should never, ever lie. Uh, about that... ^^; Duplicity is featured quite a bit throughout this story. Hideko is no saint herself; she feels "dead inside," and I cannot help but view her as a sort of mimic who steals other people's words and adopts their behaviors because she has no inner identity of her own. During one of her forced BDSM shit-shows, she is even bound like a puppet attached to strings pulled by her increasingly-creepy uncle.

Don't look too closely at what's inside the glass jars. If you think Uncle is terrible toward children and women, just imagine what he is going to do to Fujiwara when he learns of his con. Anyway, this is officially a Park Chan-wook appreciation post, so check out that sick framing. Unf.

Another sexy shot. And...a happily ever after? Well, I doubt it given the tumultuous time in which the story is set, but the sense of closure is solid. That's more than can be said about this post. Yeesh.

Happy new decade, everybody.

Send help.

For more information:

• The Handmaiden on IMDb