Poetry

A woman in the autumn of her years is prompted by art and circumstance to reexamine her life in this drama from director Lee Chang-dong. Yang Mija (Yun Jung-hee) is a charming and well-preserved woman in her mid-sixties who stays busy looking after her teenage grandson, Wook (Lee David), and helping keep house for an older gentleman friend. Yang Mija has been having trouble with her memory and has developed a new curiosity about creative self-expression, so she signs up for a class in writing poetry at a neighborhood community center, even though she's never written verse before. Mija's simple, contented existence is thrown into disarray by a pair of events -- she learns from her doctor that her memory troubles are the first symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, and Wook is believed to be part of a gang of thugs who severely beat and raped a girl who responded by committing suicide. As Mija faces a grim future, she's uncertain about the notion of turning her grandson in to the police or raising money for a settlement that would keep him out of prison, and suddenly the beauty of the world seems a far more elusive concept. Shi (aka Poetry) was an official selection at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.