Park Chan-wook's THE HANDMAIDEN: full of secrets and lies -- and it's drop-dead gorgeous

If you're a fan of South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook (J.S.A., his Vengeance trilogy, and Thirst), you'll make a bee line for his newest film, THE HANDMAIDEN, which is very probably his best. It is certainly his most beautiful film, often breathtaking in its color and composition, but it is also his most placid -- even thought it's filled with mystery, betrayals, and finally just a tad's worth of his signature violence and blood. It is also one of the sexiest, most voluptuous movies I've ever seen -- brought to life, or at least to movie life, with that peculiar (to us westerners) Asian blend of inscrutability, perversity and out-and-out passion that offers up a very hot time.

Mr. Park, shown at left, is gifted in so many areas -- storytelling, visual sense and provocation -- that prove pertinent to the tale he tells here. It is lifted pretty much intact (as I remember, at least) from the British lesbian mystery series Fingersmith, which was set in Victorian England and first shown on television in 2005. Park has made the move to Korea and Japan seem utterly appropriate in terms of plot, behavior and all else. And his movie is maybe ten times as beautiful as was the original -- which was perfectly fine in its own manner.

Fingersmith, in three episodes, ran three hours, and The Handmaiden, coming in at nearly two-and-one half, is almost comparable in length. The plots (as I recall, at least), while similar in basic outline, vary greatly in their details, especially as concerns a "reading group" composed of wealthy Japanese men for whom one of our heroines performs. (These scenes are among the movie's most bizarre, perverse and, in their way, beautiful.)

The tale told involves a pretty young girl who is a pickpocket in a family of criminals, another of whom, posing as a wealthy Count, has wormed his way into the trust of a man who controls the inheritance of a niece whom the Count plans to woo, marry, dispose of, and inherit her wealth. To more easily accomplish this. he uses the young girl to serve as the lady's hand-maiden and help convince her that this Count is the man of her dreams.

The filmmaker tell his tale from three vantage points, that of the handmaiden, then from the POV of the lady for whom she works, and finally from the usual, all-knowing viewpoint we're more used to in our movies. Though much of the same material is covered, seeing it so differently proves enriching, surprising and very entertaining. Our sympathies moves back and forth between the two women, finally coming to rest almost equally on both. (The men here are entirely pigs. Of their time, of course, but pigs all the same.)

The plot may have its coincidences and contrivances but so enthralling are the characters and the beautiful visuals that I don't think you'll mind one bit. (I kept wanting to takes notes on the film but could not pry my eyes away from the screen long enough to do so.) A terrific cast has been assembled here, and it performs to the hilt. The little details Park allows us to witness -- taking care of milady's too-sharp tooth, for instance -- are just about perfectly chosen for both beauty and intimacy.

This movie is so full of quiet surprise and finally a kind of passionate dedication to freedom for its quartet of characters (in very different ways, however) that I don't want to spoil one bit more of the rapturously convoluted plot by blabbing further. The Handmaiden -- like Snowpiercer and a number of other South Korean films -- keeps this little country still at the forefront of some of the best and most unusual mainstream arthouse cinema.

Being distributed across the USA by Magnolia Pictures, running 145 minutes and remaining unrated, the movie -- after opening in New York and L.A. last week to mostly excellent reviews -- hits cities around the country this Friday, October 28. Here in South Florida, it plays the Coral Gables Art Cinema in the Miami area, the Miami Beach Cinematheque, and the Cinemark Palace 20 in Boca Raton. To see all currently scheduled playdates and theaters, click here. 

Strangeness reigns, as Bingham Bryant and Kyle Molzan's FOR THE PLASMA opens at AFA

If you're a sucker for movies that tease and provoke but barely fulfill, FOR THE PLASMA, a new head-scratcher from Bingham Bryant (writer, producer,co-director/co-editor) and Kyle Molzan (co-director, co-editor, sound recording) might just be your cup of sugar-free kool-aid. The situation: A young woman shows up, evidently invited, at the New England home of a friend she's not seen for some time, for a visit and to give that friend a little help with her work. What that work actually is becomes the mystery, MacGuffin and driving force of this bizarre-but-frustrating moviegoing experience.

The filmmakers (shown at left, with Mr. Bryant on the right) have set up a wonderfully peculiar situation in which the "work" done by one of the women we meet is so strange (and so very poorly defined by both the character, who explains it to her friend, and by the dialog itself) that any normal response would go something like, "Wait: Say that all again, and this time make some sense, please." Instead, the friend accepts it all with what amounts to a shrug, and we're off the races. And no, I don't mean the horse races; this is more like the turtle races.

Still, the situation is so bizarre that we stick around, if only to find out what the hell is actually going on. Before we do (which turns out to be mostly a "don't"), we're sucked into a scenario that encompasses everything from solitude and paranoia to friendship, employment, conspiracy, surveillance and New England nuttiness in extremis.

The movie, which was shot on 16mm film, looks very good, and the performances of the two leading ladies -- newcomer Anabelle LeMieux (above) and Rosalie Lowe (below, left) -- are kept as close to the vest as can be imagined. We learn very little about either character, and what we do learn seems more at the service of a screenplay that asks for far too much suspension of disbelief than one that wants to create full and actual characters.

That "work" that is being done in the woods near the house in which our two ladies live is certainly interesting, even if, after a lot of mumbo-jumbo that ranges from talk of spotting incipient fires to visual "mapping" (three photos above) to oddball Asians or maybe possible aliens on the loose (the title phrase is mentioned in passing but never elaborated upon), we are no closer to understanding it than we were at the film's beginning.

Meanwhile we meet a few townspeople, primarily a lighthouse keeper with what appears a very slight hold on reality (or anything else). The most interesting part of the movie are the visuals of that work project in the woods, in which nature is "framed" quite nicely, as below.

And the ending does have a kind of come-full-circle quality that may please. Otherwise, the film is for those who demand originality and mystery at the expense of a few other qualities -- sense and believabilty among them -- that make movie-watching pleasurable for some of us.

From Factory 25 and running too long even at 94 minutes, For the Plasma opens in New York City this Thursday, July 21, at Anthology Film Archives; on Friday, July 29, in Chicago at Facets Cinematheque; and will play Tuesday and Wednesday,  August 2 and 3, in Austin at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar.

Photo, second from top, of the 

co-directors is by Robin Holland.

Marion Cotillard shines in the Dardenne brothers' ultra-progressive film, TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT

There could hardly be a better time for a movie like TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT to appear. That it was bypassed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences' shortlist for this year's Best Foreign Language Film is ridiculous. But, hey, that's Hollywood. (Bring back The Blacklist, boys!) Its tale -- of an employee at a solar-energy manufacturing facility who is suddenly down-sized by her bosses via a vote taken by her co-workers on whether they will receive a large Christmas bonus in lieu of the employee's holding on to her job -- is a near-perfect look at the joys and rewards of Capitalism in the workplace. What that employee, Sandra -- a fierce and fragile performance by the wonderful Marion Cotillard (above and further below, in pink) -- decides to do about her situation makes up the heart of this unusual movie.

One of, and maybe the best of the films to come from the Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (shown at right, with Jean-Pierre on the left), the movie taps into so much that the western world is experiencing today regarding employment, family, health (mental and physical) and the idea of Socialism vs Capitalism.

After the initial shock of the news abates, Sandra's husband and her best friend/co-worker urge her to demand another vote (the first one appears to have been rigged by a boss who intimated that if the crew voted to keep Sandra, another of them might be downsized). The remainder of the movie details Sandra's search for her co-workers over a weekend spent urging, cajoling, asking and hoping for their support.

If all this sounds a bit predictable, the result is anything but. Responses from the co-workers run the gamut. That bonus of one thousand Euros is nothing to sneeze at, and some of the workers need the money rather desperately. Yet each situation is different, and its result often surprising.

Among the most moving is Sandra's meeting with an employee (newcomer Timur Magomedgadzhiev, above) to whom she acted as mentor. Another, taking place in a laundromat at night, reveals as much about the situation of Sandra's co-worker as it does her own situation. Some meetings lead to anger and, in one case, violence.

Through it all Sandra's husband (played by Fabrizio Rongione, above) encourages and helps his wife along. She certainly needs this for, as we soon learn, Sandra has had a severe bout of depression, for which she was given a leave of  absence from work.  There are times throughout the movie when viewers may wonder just how capable Sandra is of actually doing her job.

It is greatly to the Dardennes credit that they don't hand us characters who fall easily or completely into heroes and villains. Best of all, they let us see and understand how Capitalism works to undermine the worth of the individual by keeping everything focused on profit, while ensuring that the workers fail to see their situation from a collective perspective.

In the process the Belgian brothers may have created a new kind of genre -- one especially appropriate for our times -- the "employment thriller." What will happen to Sandra's job takes on increasing suspense, and the outcome may surprise you. It and its movie go beyond mere good and bad, happy or unhappy endings, to confront the entire situation in a manner more subtle, thoughtful and humane.

Two Days, One Night -- from Sundance Selects/IFC Films and running a brisk 95 minutes -- opens this Wednesday, December 24, in New York City at the IFC Center and Lincoln Plaza Cinema, and in Los Angeles at in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle Theaters, beginning January 9.