Korea, 1930s. A con man hires a pickpocket to become the maid of a mysterious and fragile heiress, in an attempt to seize her wealth. But the story takes a twist when the lady falls in love with he...
THE HANDMAIDEN
(Chan-wook Park, 2016)
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Story:
This film has one of the greatest scripts in recent years, there's no doubt about it. It's roughly split in three parts, each one told from another perspective, each one digging deeper into a dark world. Characters change there positions, nothing is set in stone and everthing can change in a second. It's filled with wonderful visual storytelling and metaphors, slowly getting darker over time. The character design is amazing (black tongue!) and the actors just pull it off perfectly. Oh, and I don't think I have to mention Park... He's a master of his craft, no doubt about that.
Style:
What can I say? Park isn't just a genius, he also reassembles his wonderful crew. This film has the same cinematographer, cutter, composer, production- and costume designer as Parks masterpiece Oldboy. The music already gave me chills during the main menu (!), the color palettes and framing are creative, efficient and completely capture the tmosphere. And the production design! It depicts the 30s perfect. The house! It feels like the set is a character itself, we get to know more and more about the house while the story slowly unfolds. Magical.
Entertainment:
As I wrote in the story section, this movie is filled with twists, metaphors and just pulls you in from the first minutes. I was sitting on the edge of my seat, eager to see how the story evolve. Besides that, the visuals alone keep you glued to the screen. I felt like the second act had a few redundant scenes, the third act was a little bit underwhelming, compared to the first two... But that's criticism ob a very, very high level! This film is thrilling, surprising, sexy (!) and just has a wonderful, tragic beauty to it!
Conclusion:
This film is just wonderful. I can't wait to rewatch it, to get all the nuances of screenplay, the double bottoms, knowing the twists already. The Handmaiden creates a vortex, that pulls you deeper and deeper into a dark world. It feels a liiittle bit long in a few scenes... That's pretty much my only criticism. It couldn't be closer to a 10, it almost hurts not to give it the perfect grade. 'Cuz it's so! Damn! Good!
