The Handmaiden
2016 Directed by Park Chan-wook
Insidious desire
Control is so much the creation of illusion in the mind's eye- as our ego and obsession corrupts the view. Within Park Chan-wook's tale there are several upheavals of control with the intermixed main characters. There is the isolated book obssessed Korean man named Kouzuki. His lips are black with ink as an outward display of his filth- and he lives as a rich man under a setting of the Japan occupation of Korea. He is the ward of his niece Hideko- who he has kept away from the world and naive- groomed to be Kouzuki's wife in the future so that he can keep Hideko's family fortune. A Korean thief named Sook-hee has been enlisted by a falsely aristocratic con man named Count Fujiwara to become a maid for Hideko to convince her to marry the Count instead of Kouzuki.
This setup plays with each character's perspective. Sook-hee closely forms a bond with Hideko- realizing that Kouzuki's abuse has impeded Hideko as much as Sook-hee's own life under Japanese cruelty. Kouzuki even has a disjointed cultural view- even making his home part Victorian English and Japanese- rejecting his Korean heritage and spending his money on these perverse rare books and woodblock prints like that of the undersea creatures engorging itself on the flesh of a woman in "The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife."
Hideko is coerced to read erotique horror with egregiously lewd displays for Japanese men dressed in refined western clothes- they are merely there to be dominated and conned- buying fake books because Kouzuki's own rich life is but a fakery for the perception of others. Kouzuki becomes a physical reflection of these dark twisted works.
Count Fujiwara believes in his own seductive qualities in charming Hideko even as it becomes more obvious that his male prowess becomes inert and only there to impress his fellow men- The Count submits himself to the seductive readings of Hideko so readily that he is blind to the affection of Sook-hee and Hideko. The two women bond in bliss that seems both a staged lampoon of male gaze to total embrace of female sexuality.
Each of these moments is filled with cinematic fetishism- Of total sensory motifs where the most erotic is not the most pornographic- oral fixations with lips to candy and a mouth opening to have a tooth filed down has an intimate seductive sweetness. The constricted cords of bondage with corsets and gloves equally instills a mesmeric focus on what is happening on the screen. A dollified play of dress up and focused unbuttoning of each other to invert the role of the handmaiden to that of a lady as well- toying with the variable power structures within the film. "Ladies truly are the dolls of maids."
The camera's focus lulls the audience into questioning the authenticity of Hideko and Sook-hee's relationship through this interaction. Who is in control and who is being conned- from societal structures to personal ones- encircles the intimacy of the characters. The grand scale of the house itself leaves one to wonder what could be lurking just beneath the facade. Where there are places one dare not go- itself a motif in western horror- showcasing this intermix of cross culture that makes the film bear an oddness. Each space feels constricting, but the world isn't unified.
The continual shift in loyalty of characters and the unstableness of the home itself underscores the backdrop of colonized Korea. The destitute numbness of their reality to find some authentic identity - seeking to break free and enjoy true freedom- whether in carnal desire or the very last gasps of macabre ends . The tension throughout is exuded through the cinematography- making the unbearably hard to watch seem utterly beautiful as well.