Directed by Lee Chang-dong in 2010, Poetry (Original: Shi) is a Korean film and the winner of the “Best Screenplay Award” at the Cannes Film Festival, along with its success in winning and being nominated for several prizes in terms of best screenplay, best picture, best actress and best achievement in directing. The film mainly tells the story of an old woman who developed an interest in writing a poem in her late sixties when she was also diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and has trouble remembering the words. On the other hand, there is another story parallel to her interest in poetry: Her adolescent grandson whom she raises committed a crime in collaboration with five of his classmates. They raped one of their classmates who ended up committing suicide after six months of constant assault.
The main character of the film, Mija is a woman who remembers a memory after fifty years of being away from literature and poetry: When she was a child, her teacher said that she would be a good poet one day. When she sees an announcement of a poetry course in her sixties, she is walking on
Mija’s poetry course teacher insistently tells that writing a poem is about the chase for beauty in the world. Following this advice, Mija seeks the beauty in the world around her. However, it turns out that the beauty she is searching for steps away from her as the situation gets worse. She not only realizes that her grandson committed a blood curdling crime, but also the families of the other delinquent children are planning to cover up the issue by paying a generous amount of money to the family of the victimized girl.
The situation that led Mija to write a poem turns out to be quite the contrast to what she learned in the poetry course. Being frustrated by the attempts to find the beauty of life, she writes her poem witnessing the disgrace of her grandson and sharing the destiny of the victimized girl.
The main pattern in the film is the contrast. Although it is named “poetry” which sounds elegant both in English and Korean (“shi”), it starts with a scene in which a corpse body is seen floating on the river on a calm and beautiful day. As Turan also draws attention to this contrast and the style