THE HANDMAIDEN

The estate, in which the rich heiress Hideko lives, or rather vegetates, may somehow be compared to the structure of Park Chan-wook’s movies: It’s an eclectic mix of styles somewhere between a Victorian villa and a Japanese mansion, with the specific elements not mixed up but rather put next to each other. The young pickpocket Sook-he is sent by a con artist into this Eurasian in-between world, set in 1930s Korea under Japanese occupation. Disguised as a maid, she’s supposed to get Hideko to fall in love with the fake count and marry him. Afterwards Hideko is to be killed and her wealth split between the two of them. A perfect plan, but only as long as the two women fall for each other. In “The Handmaiden” one can literally skim the desire out of the steaming atmosphere – that’s the extent to which Park has loaded his sado-masochistic erotic thriller with looks, movements, smells and obsessions – which doesn’t mean his production is less violent or powerful than his classic genre movies. Protagonists as well as spectators tumble through a maelstrom of fake truths and true lust, transforming “The Handmaiden” into a perfidious hall of mirrors of human urges, an elegant, brutal, sexual ride into the lap of hell.