JEON DO-YEON IN THE HOUSEMAID

Dark doings in a grand house

Korean directors can astonish and delight, and they can be all over the place. This one, Im Sang-soo, made a harsh, workmanlike movie about a governmental assassination in 2005, The President's Big Bang. The next year his The Old Garden is a rambling, sensuous, meditative adaptation of a novel about a love affair and a life in leftist politics. Now he has done an elaborate and sumptuous remake of Kim Ki-young's 1960 black and white psychodrama, using the largest set ever built in Korea and turning the story into something that goes from deliciously kinky to ridiculously over the top. For mise-en-scène, Im's gorgeous, soft-core sexy Housmaid is worth seeing. But it's a terrible disappointment, because Im not only reverses the plot, making the young maid the victim rather than the victimizer, but goes without any logic from psychological study to Grand Guignol. This movie itself is all over the place, and its pleasure is reduced to admiring bits and pieces of an incoherent whole: the grand, yet minimalist, set; the young, spoiled master's overdeveloped pectorals as he forces the maid to go down on him; his jealous wife's kewpie-doll beauty. Or laughing at the older maid's grumpy self-indulgence as she smokes and drinks and grouses during her down-time. Im's The Housemaid offers pleasures, but not the experience of logical or aesthetic unity. The film is also an attack on old money that may be pretty irrelevant given South Korean's great supply of new money.

Why build an elaborate set at all? Evidently because this is a fantasy -- and a folly -- rather than an effort to depict actual rich people. Im has said the family house should be seen not at a house at all but an art piece. There are so many sections that the space is not clear. There are huge empty rooms, one with a grand piano, where the master plays sonorous, perfect Beethoven; another with giant chairs where snacks are served. Beautiful oval bath tubs are provided for both the maids and the owners and they float in the middle of nearly empty chambers. The two maids have cozy adjoining bedrooms. It's never clear how any of these places relate in space to one another -- unfortunate for a drama that mostly takes place in a house -- and a pitfall of overreaching in the decor department. Nonetheless the decor is fun to look at, as are the (perhaps unrelated?) exteriors, which resemble an old western museum or bank, perhaps. Likewise the interior decoration is partly minimalist and contemporary, partly kitsch and cozy. Modern, mostly abstract, paintings line the walls, by some of Korea's host of good contemporary artists. But so what?

The Housemaid is a bit of a horror movie. Byung-sik (Youn Yuh-jung), the older maid who brings in the young one Eun-yi (Jeon Do-yeon), isn't just a grumpy old lady but also potentially an evil dominatrix who knows all and can control all -- a remnant of the original film's plot. There's an icky scary pregnancy theme. The kewpie-doll mistress Hera (Seo Woo) is also hugely pregnant; the buff, spoiled master Hoon (Lee Jung-jae) forces himself on Eun-yi once too often and she gets pregnant, but by then Eun-yi's illusion that this is a fun job has begun rapidly to fade. You will not believe how badly things end. But then you will suspect from the prologue showing Eun-yi working in a slummy downtown restaurant and witnessing a young woman throwing herself from a building. This unsubtle foreshadowing is as awkwardly conjoined as the various wings of the house.

Amid the elaborate moodiness, the ornate sets, plot gets squeezed into a corner and so does any psychological or moral logic. What are we supposed to take away? Who are supposed to be the victims?

The sound design is exquisite, the visuals dark and elegant. The acting is at worst interesting, though Jeon Do-yeon has had better roles; she won Best Actress at Cannes in 2007 for Secret Sunshine. If this movie is a folly, it's a beautiful and initially haunting one. Eun-yi's first hours at the house in particular stick in your mind. And while you'll get confused and disappointed toward the end, you will never get bored. But The Housemaid an example of the by now highly developed Korean film industry's often-exhibited overreaching tendencies.

The Housemaid had a limited US theatrical opening January 21, 2011. An IFC release, it will be available for TV on demand from January 26. It is now (Feb. 2011) showing in Bay Area theaters. Metascore 68%.

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©Chris Knipp 2011