The Handmaiden
| The Handmaiden | |
| Title (English) | The Handmaiden |
|---|---|
| Title (Korean) | 아가씨 |
| Directed by | Park Chan-wook |
| Written by | Seo-kyeong Jeong, Park Chan-wook |
| Screenplay by | Seo-kyeong Jeong, Park Chan-wook |
| Based on | "Fingersmith" by Sarah Waters |
| Starring | Kim Min-hee, Kim Tae-ri, Ha Jung-woo, Cho Jin-woong |
| Release date | 14 May 2016 (Cannes), 1 June 2016 (South Korea) |
| Running time | 144 minutes |
| Country | South Korea |
| Language | Korean, Japanese |
Plot
A woman is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, but secretly she is involved in a plot to defraud her.
Cast
Kim Min-hee as Lady / Izumi Hideko
Kim Tae-ri as Maid / Nam Sook-hee
Ha Jung-woo as Count Fujiwara
Cho Jin-woong as Uncle Kouzuki
Kim Hae-sook as Madame Sasaki
Moon So-ri as Hideko's aunt
Lee Yong-nyeo as Bok-soon
Lee Dong-hwi as Goo-gai
Jo Eun-hyung as young Hideko
Rina Takagi as Hideko's mother
Han Hannah as Junko
Lee Ji-ha as Owner of Ryokan
Jeong Ha-dam as Housemaid
Choi Byung-mo as Audience member
Awards and Nominations
| Year | Award | Category | Nominee | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | BAFTA | Best Film Not in the English Language | The Handmaiden | Won |
| 2016 | Cannes Film Festival | Palme d'Or | Park Chan-wook | Nominated |
| Blue Dragon Film Awards | Best Film | The Handmaiden | Nominated |
Academic Analysis
The Handmaiden (2016) is a story of love, connection, control, and betrayal. In three parts, the film weaves a complex story of two women - Lady Hideko and her Korean maid, Sook-hee. Each of the film’s parts slowly illuminates more of the story, relationships, and motivations of these two women, along with the swindler Count Fujiwara and Hideko’s perverted uncle Kouzuki. The film is a masterpiece in cinema and storytelling, with so much layered meaning created by complex mise-en-scene and brought together by beautiful cinematography.
Park Chan-wook, an already extremely accomplished director at the time of making this film, is truly an auteur, seamlessly writing meaning into each frame with subtlety and precision. Many of his previous works reached great acclaim and worldwide recognition, yet many see The Handmaiden as his most successful work. This is perhaps due to the huge number of readings that can be done on the film’s meaning, but it is also perhaps because Park - a straight man - manages to create an incredibly interesting and successful dialogue on the male gaze. It is near impossible to create a lesbian storyline that acknowledges, describes, and shows the sexuality of women who love women without being accused of perpetuating the male gaze or casting the characters through such a lens. The Handmaiden is not without its critics in this respect, however I believe that Park is successful in flipping the script and creating a film that holds the male gaze up to a mirror - one held by a lesbian woman.
Through symbolism Park creates deeper meaning in The Handmaiden, and in doing so simultaneously acknowledges the prevalence of the male gaze in lesbian romance, and subverts it - untying the two from one another and casting away male gaze, if only briefly. Symbolism is ever-present in The Handmaiden, this film alone could be the subject of a university course. However due to the constraints of this paper’s format, this essay will explore in-depth two of the major parts of mise-en-scene that create meaning in The Handmaiden: framing and costuming.
