All language subtitles for The Housemaid (1960)_comm

-Hello. I'm Park Chan-wook.
-And I'm Lee Dong-jin.

We will start the commentary
on the film The Housemaid.

Yes.

I really didn't know that this film was
going to be released on Blu-ray Disc.

This is an important event in film history.

The Housemaid is an exceptional
film that occupies

an important and special place
in Korea film history.

So I believe this commentary will be very
important to many Korean film lovers.

I don't watch same movies again and again,

even the ones I like.
I watched this movie only

once a long time ago, and watched it
again to prepare for the commentary.

-So I've watched it only twice.
-I see.

I was worried that I might be
disappointed with the movie.

But I was shocked when I watched it.

You saw it again this morning before
we started recording the commentary.

I did.

The director Kim Ki-young made
several great films, but

I wondered again how he was able
to create this cinematic masterpiece.

And even among his great films,
I realized again that

this film is really special.

The whole film is shot like the one
in a picture frame.

Now the prologue part of the film is over.

And they are playing the game of cat's cradle.

I think this is a great backdrop for credits.

Yes.

It's great because the scene is
simple and repetitive,

but I am curious why the director
wanted to use it here.

Later, the film shows a cotton mill,
so he may want to connect it

to making thread and weaving.

Yes, I think so.

But the wife in this house uses
a sewing machine all the time,

and the film brings up the image
of thread, cloth, and clothes.

-Which repeats.
-Yes, it keeps repeating.

Cat's cradle is not an easy game
to play because if you make

one wrong move, the thread becomes undone.

So he is bringing that...

That sense of tension.

We can guess that
this game symbolizes risk,

or things that can come undone.

Also, building a house is
important in this film.

Especially building a two-story house.

-It represents a desire of the middle class.
-That's true.

It is a visual representation
of that desire.

And the game of cat's cradle
is like building a house.

-It is architectural in a way.
-Yes.

The game can be difficult to play,
but the patterns

repeat themselves.

So the game keeps going in circles.

It's not used as a metaphor, but
it as a literal manifestation of that idea.

-Things going in circles is an image in the film.
-Yes.

Here, she is spinning the sewing machine.

And they are spinning machines
at the cotton mill.

Like fate that keeps going
in circles without an exit.

Those are the ideas that
I associated with the first image.

The maid, played by Lee Eun-sim,

just passed by in the scene.

I didn't know she showed up
so early in the film.

When I watched the film for the first time,
I didn't see her, but

watching it the second time,
I realized she works at the mill.

But she doesn't show her face.

I'm guessing that she works
at the cafeteria in the factory,

although it might not be the cafeteria.

-She looks like a cleaning woman.
-She does.

So she is a character who does
odd jobs at the mill.

The fact she is a cleaning woman means

-that even at the mill...
-Yes.

Even in this textile factory,

people are divided
into different classes.

I didn't know that was her
because I couldn't see her face, but

she wears the same clothes
when she moves into Dong-sik's house.

I see.

And there is a close-up scene with the mop,
which seems unnecessary,

and the scene is repeated
as if for emphasis.

It's obvious that the scene is
in the film for a reason.

Yes.

And Kim Jin-kyu plays Dong-sik.

I searched for information about
Kim Jin-kyu, and I found out that

he was 38 when
he filmed this movie.

-But...
-He looks older.

A Korean actor
who is 38 now is

Won Bin.

Kim Jin-kyu was the same age
as Won Bin when he filmed this.

It's hard to believe.

After playing Dong-sik in this film,

he was in Aimless Bullet
the following year.

The two films have always
been rated as

the top two films in Korean
film history by film critics.

-Right.
-The two films have competed for first place.

And he was in the top two
films one after the other.

He was.

He was a great actor, and those were
the best years that he had as an actor.

He was well known for the image
of a gentleman and an intellect,

but he wasn't so highly
educated in reality.

But in films, he often played
intellectual characters,

-or incompetent fathers.
-He did

In some ways, the character that
he plays in this film overlaps

-with the character he plays in Aimless Bullet.
-That's true.

But in The Road to Sampo,
he plays a very different character.

This is the scene in which
he finds a love letter.

But he reports it to the superintendent.
He is a tattletale.

I thought this was a really unexpected
and interesting way to start the story.

Dong-sik is a character with castration
anxiety, and this loss of masculinity

is manifested in his fear
of losing his job.

And telling the superintendent about
the letter comes from that fear.

Yes.

He's afraid of the love letter
growing into a scandal,

and that it would eventually
cost him his livelihood.

-There is definitely that.
-And at the same time,

he pretends to be a very
ethical person when, in fact,

-he is very repressed.
-That's true.

He could have just dismissed it.

And even the superintendent
expresses her concern that

it might cause harm to the mill
worker who wrote the letter.

And she asks whether
he has to go to that extreme.

But he does something that
makes him look like a prick

or some kind of puritan

who expects even other people
to be morally impeccable.

But the way he behaves later on
shows him to be the very opposite.

There is the maid again.

I see.

I was paying attention
only to the stairs.

The stairs in this film symbolize
one of its important thematic ideas.

-It's a spatial image.
-Yes

So the film gives viewers a sneak preview of
what is to come even here in the mill scene.

Director Kim Ki-young was
called eccentric or idiosyncratic,

or a director with a taste for the grotesque,

or a show-off who likes to flaunt his style.

He was often described that way,

but when you watch his films,
you realize they were made

based on meticulous calculations,
which seem almost mathematical.

That is especially true in this film.

It is so true regarding the plot of the film
as well as the cutting of the scenes.

For example, Director Ha Gil-jong
once said that Kim Ki-young

was the Korean director who was
most exact with scene cutting.

Director Ha said this
some time in the 70s.

Director Kim had a near perfect
sense when it came to

the camera angle or
the size of the scene.

He was famous for that
in Chungmu-ro.

-When I was just starting out in the industry,
-Yes?

I used to ask everyone who had
been in the field for a while

whether they ever had a chance
to work with Director Kim.

Those who did unanimously said
that he was a perfectionist,

and that he was always precise
about where cameras should be.

He told the cameramen
where their cameras should be

and gave them specific instructions
on the size of the camera lens,

-whether 35 mm or 50 mm.
-He did... I see.

And when they looked in their cameras,
actors were exactly where they should be.

So like Hitchcock, Director Kim
started making films after

he had learned everything there was
to learn about cameras and camera lenses.

In the film, the set designs also
play an important role.

People said that the director
himself hammered nails in

in the sets for this film.

And the editing...
the way he edited the film

is just amazing, even from
today's point of view.

His editing choices were bold, and
the story never drags even for a moment.

The story takes place inside one house,
and with so much repetition, but

-there is not one moment of dullness.
-Not one!

Nothing drags on.

And there are a lot of movements with cameras.

And he also used cranes a lot.

Now we are looking at the house
before the family moves into it.

They are not well-off, and you see
the piano and the sewing machine

together in one place. Like in his
other movies, in which you find

conflicting character images or things
that represent contradicting ideas,

in The Housemaid, you see
the piano and the sewing machine,

which represent two different images.

If I were to have a different
title for the film, it would be

The Piano and The Sewing Machine.

-Not only those two things...
-Yes?

The film uses different pieces of
furniture or one specific body part

over and over again, and it explores
all possible interpretations of the images

by showing them in different contexts.

In the beginning of the film,
everyone in the family is excited

about moving into their
new house because

it means they are moving up,
especially on the social ladder.

But their girl had polio,
which left her lame.

The fact that she is lame
brings a certain mood

into the film from the beginning.

-That is true.
-The image of the family,

which seems perfect
on the surface is offset

by their girl who is lame.

And the father is almost cruel
to his own daughter.

Her younger brother, played by
Ahn Sung-ki, treats her the same way.

She is treated with the same coldness
and even meanness by her father

and brother. She is like the dirty
laundry that the family wants to hide.

And this might sound very cruel
but to her family, she is like a dirty stain.

They seem to think
that their family would be

really perfect if only
she wasn't lame.

Everyone in the family
seems to think that.

Ahn Sung-ki was 11 at the time.

He was in another film by
Kim Ki-young, called The Twilight Train

-two years prior to being in this one.
-I see.

Ms. Kim Ji-mi also made her
debut in The Twilight Train.

-There is the maid again.
-Yes, that's her.

-Now I can tell just by looking at her back.
-And her clothes, too.

-She has her hair braided.
-She does.

This is really a strange scene.

This is where female mill
workers change their clothes.

But Dong-sik just marches in
I don't know what he thinks he is doing.

One of the recurring themes
in this film seems to be about

-intrusion.
-Right.

It can be a physical intrusion, or

-intrusions that are visual or auditory in nature.
-I see.

The film seems to be making a declaration
that it is about intrusions.

-Yes...
-So it has a character that marches into a place like that.

What stands out in this scene is that

a man walks into a factory
of all female workers.

What happens later is that
the maid...

-Yes.
-The maid walks into the house

-like some kind of virus.
-Yes.

Which actually reminded me
of your film, Thirst.

What really surprised me when I was
watching the movie early this morning

was how it had sub-
consciously influenced me.

I saw things that came across
as being awfully familiar.

It was a really long time ago
when I saw this film for the first time.

-And I forgot about it.
-Yes?

I am notorious for being forgetful, so

I thought I didn't remember
any of this film, but

it must have stayed somewhere in me,
and without my being aware of it,

it must have influenced me
when I made my movies,

like Thirst or
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.

In Thirst, The Happy Hanbok
Place is also a two-story,

-A two story building.
-Right.

-And I have a character who wears traditional clothes.
-Right.

And the clothes give viewers a similar
feel as it does in this film.

Dong-sik's wife always wears
a traditional dress.

And Ms. Um Aing-ran was just
rising to stardom at the time.

Yes, that was the case.

By the time she made this film, it had been
four years since she had debuted as an actress.

And this movie came out before
her hit film, The Barefooted Young.

That's right.

She is the most fashionable
character in the film.

And it's obvious she paid a lot of
attention to what she wore in the film.

She was famous
for her slender waist.

And she wears dresses that draw
attention to her waist.

But what is unexpected is that

she does not change into
that many different dresses.

In the beginning of the film,
she wears the same dress,

and she doesn't change into
a different dress for a long time.

You're right.

I thought about why,
and I realized this film

simplifies and repeats images
based on meticulous calculation.

You mean to create a sense
of rhythm in the film.

Reading the reviews from the time
when the film was released,

critics pointed out that the camera
angle in the choir scenes

was too simple, and it is true,

since the scenes were filmed
using the same exact camera angle

again and again. The street scenes
in front of the house were also

shot from the same camera angle.

So the film is able to draw
more attention to the changes

that take place by repeatedly
presenting viewers with the same scenes

again and again. After that,
the film slowly makes its way

to destroying what it has
built up through the repetition.

Yes, the situation slowly gets
worse as time passes.

The scene in which Dong-sik is giving
Gyeong-hui a piano lesson

clearly shows the sexual
tension between the two,

with their hands on
top of each other.

You see similar tension when
the maid is holding onto Dong-sik

with her hands clasped behind his back.

-Yes.
-Those images are very closely connected.

But it also reminded me of
a piano scene in my film, Stoker.

-I know which scene you mean.
-It's almost eerie.

And here is the same
angle in the choir scene.

What I also find interesting is
the bust of Beethoven's head,

which is looking down on everything.
And the same thing is in his house.

-Yes, there it is.
-And later on, that also takes on

a very important meaning in the film.

It is used as a small prop that connects
the choir room and his house.

I was thinking how important
Gyeong-hui is as a character,

who is played by
Ms. Um Aing-ran,

but throughout the film,
this Gyeong-hui character

hides behind the other characters.

She persuades two other female

characters to approach Dong-sik, and

one of them ends up killing herself.

-The one called Gwak Seon-Yeong.
-Yes.

And the other woman is the maid.

From Dong-sik's point of view,
these two female characters

represent a displacement of
his desire for Gyeong-hui.

-You mean more like a substitution for her.
-Right.

Dong-sik is surrounded
by too many women.

Um Aing-ran plays Gyeong-hui...

-Yes, she plays Jo Gyeong-hui.
-It is really difficult

to understand why she does
what she does in the film.

So she is secretly in love with Dong-sik
but cajoles her friend to write him a love letter.

-And because of the letter, she ends up killing herself.
-Yes.

And she talks her into working
as a maid for Dong-sik's family.

Not only that, to get her to work
as the maid for the family,

she gives her 1,000 hwan
(the name of the previous Korean currency).

-Out of her own pocket.
-Yes.

Why does she spend her own money
to have the maid living in the house,

and what does she gain from it?

It is difficult to understand
her motivation.

Since she works at a factory,
she wouldn't have a lot of money,

but she takes private piano lessons,

which she has to pay for.

Is she ingratiating herself with the family
by spending money on them,

or is she making the maid spy
on the family for her?

But she doesn't ask
the maid for information.

Gyeong-hui is a problematic
character in the film.

If we were to look at the film
from Dong-sik's point of view,

the target of his desire,

the one he really desires is

Jo Gyeong-hui.

For example, the day he has
sex with the maid

is the day when he couldn't admit to
himself his desire for Gyeong-hui.

He refuses to admit it, and that night,
he is seduced by the maid.

-Yes.
-Which leads to them having sex.

-And it is the day when they go to...
-To the grave

of Gwak Seon-Yeong. So there are three
women that he becomes involved with.

It is the night when he gets
entangled with all three women.

It is a fateful night.

Yes.

On the other hand,
he is a family man.

He is making curry rice, which back
then was called rice curry.

Yes.

So this choice of food,
that he is making none other

than rice curry,
which is a Western food,

exemplifies a dream of the middle class,

a dream that is illustrated by the two-story
house and the rice curry.

Yes, the dream

is represented by those images.

Many critics pointed out that
when this film was made in 1960,

it had not been that long ago
that the country had

gone through war, and the economy
was starting to be rebuilt.

It had been seven years
since the war.

Critics saw how this family tried
so hard to climb up the class ladder.

The middle class was represented
by a two-story house and a piano.

And also by food like rice curry.

But not many people actually belonged
to the middle class; that was rare.

The people in this house wear
shoes inside their house.

They do.

But Dong-sik's wife only wears
a traditional dress, the Hanbok.

She is the one with
the strongest desire for success.

-But she is also the most conservative one.
-She is.

This picture-perfect family can
be violent sometimes.

When it comes to scenes like this,
I have to say that director Kim...

-This is when he wasn't at his best.
-Yes.

It is awkward to see them
very loving towards each other.

-You feel that way?
-Yes, the way this scene was done seems very awkward.

The wife who wears a Hanbok
all the time seems to symbolize

the attitude of the pre-modern.

It is the opposite of the character
Gyeong-hui or the maid,

who wears modern clothes,
not to mention the fact that

the maid smokes.

They represent the ambition
of or for modernity.

But the clash between these
two differences in time results

in a tragedy.

At the same time,
it is very complicated.

There are only a handful of
characters in the film.

And they all have different
sides to them, so it is difficult

to pinpoint and say that one character
represents tradition, and one represents modernity.

For example, the maid is
from the countryside,

and she calls herself
a second wife,

which shows that her ideas
and attitude are very

old-fashioned, almost feudalistic.

The wife, on the other hand,
wants to buy a television

and send their children to college.

She is the one who is pursuing
that desire to be middle class.

If you think about it, the mistress is someone
who is between a wife and second wife.

In Kim Ki-young's other film,
Chungnyeo, the main character is a woman

whose mother was a second wife,
and the film depicts in detail

the psychology of the main character,
who is also fated to become a mistress.

The mistress character is a recurring
one in Kim Ki-young's films,

which he built in different
films that he directed.

-Yes.
-The mistress character is a recurring character in his films.

Dong-sik just goes back and
forth between the two women,

and his indecisiveness is summarize
in one line later in the film

when he says,
"There was nothing I could do."

Meaning that there was nothing he could
do between his wife and his mistress.

Yes, and the maid comes into
the house at the same time

when mice show up in the house.

The scene after that
compares mice to squirrels.

The two animals are similar,
but they are treated

very differently.
One is the object of fear...

-While the other is the object of affection.
-Yes.

They exemplify the difference
between the two women.

And the film also suggests
how one is truer to her instincts

while the other is socialized
or trained.

How many families do you think there were
that wore shoes inside their house?

-It was extremely rare.
-Right.

And factory workers have time to

learn and sing in the choir.

They have a choir room and
a teacher to teach them.

-A teacher paid by the company.
-Yes, and he gets

paid enough to support
his family of four.

And the factory workers are
so well-dressed and Gyeong-hui

even gets private lessons.
That all seems very unrealistic.

When you read books from the 60s
or even from the time

of the Japanese colonial occupation,
the dream of people from

the 1920s or 1930s always included
a two-story house with a piano,

which for them represented

what modernity or modern life
must be like.

There is something about
the word, "maid," too.

Many young women who left their home
in the countryside came to the city

and became factory workers or
became kitchen maids called "sikmo."

Yes, they were called "sikmo,"
and the word "maid" was not used.

The word "maid” was not used even
during the Joseon Dynasty, and

it was one of the words you would
see in translation books.

Director Kim was famous
for using literary expressions.

-He was.
-So I think he used the word

intentionally, knowing that it was
a very unfamiliar word.

And another reason that he wanted
to use the word "Hanyeo" (maid),

besides the fact that it sounded very
literary, must have been because

by using the syllable "ha," meaning low,

he wanted to bring a sense of
spatialness to the word.

So it implies social class.

I think that is why he used the word
"Hanyeo" instead of "sikmo."

Director Kim was known to have
been very proud of

the titles he came up with for his films.

After The Housemaid (Hanyeo),
he used the syllable "nyeo,"

meaning "woman," in many of his films.

-He did.
-Yes.

-One of his films is titled Woman of Water (Sunyeo).
-That's right.

"Su" meaning water.

There was a film called Evil Woman (Aknyeo),
which he had been preparing

to shoot, but he passed away
before he could even start filming it.

I think he came up with
easy titles for his films,

rather than coming up
with good titles.

You're right, because I really liked
the title of his last film

that was released,
Hunting for Idiots.

But I read an interview with
Director Kim, in which he said

that he came up with the title
because the film Declaration of an Idiot

and the song "Whale Hunting"
were so popular at the time,

so he just put them together
for his film title, and it surprised

many people when they heard
his explanation.

The titles that I like are
The Housemaid,

A Woman After a Killer Butterfly, and

Carnivorous Animal.

Aren't they cool titles?

They are, and you really like
A Woman After a Killer Butterfly.

-I do.
-That film is one of the strangest films that has ever been made.

It's hard to make any
sense from that film.

-It's hard to figure out the story.
-True.

The Housemaid is about a world
that is very refined and

meticulously thought out,
compared to his later films.

They were made under
very different circumstances.

The films he directed later
in career were produced

with a poor budget
and in a limited time.

So Director Kim was not
happy with the results.

He wasn't.

Then what is it about
A Woman After a Killer Butterfly

that you like so much?

It's not that I like everything
about the film, but

Director Kim filmed it under such terrible
conditions, almost to the point

that he didn't care much about
how the film ended up being,

so he didn't make the film
to have a hit;

he made the film just to hand it
over to the company.

Within the given time.

Because he made the film without
being concerned about anything,

it actually shows to what
extremes a director can go.

-You mean the film shows that.
-Paradoxically,

the film shows what happens
when the director just lets go.

So it is hard to tell where
the story is going, and

each scene seems so disjointed.

It is a film that lets you
enjoy a director's cinematic

imagination that is
destructive and unbridled.

In this film, the maid seems to be

slightly slow.

-I am not sure.
-Slightly.

I think you can see her that way,
or see her as someone who is just weird.

She seems to go back and forth, which

leaves it to viewers to decide

what kind of person she is.

Sometimes she seems really sly, but

at other times she seems so naive, but

sometimes it seems every one of
her actions has been calculated,

or maybe she is just
acting out of impulse.

When the wife tells her
to have an abortion,

she is so easily
convinced by the wife.

And she really wants to depend

on the husband and
the wife of the house.

She also comes across as someone
who is very traditional, and

someone who think
all she needs to have

-is the love of the husband.
-She does.

But later in the film, she becomes
afraid of being poisoned and replaces

the rat poison with sugar water,
which shows how calculating she can be.

Yes, that part is very surprising.

Replacing the poison with sugar water
is in Kim Ki-young's other films.

In Woman of Fire and
also in Hwa-nyuh of 82.

-It's one of the recurring motifs...
-Yes.

That the director uses.

Hwa-nyuh of 82 was the first
Kim Ki-young film that I saw.

I saw it when it was released.

-In the theater?
-Yes.

I was a freshman in college,
and it was one of the two films

that motivated me
to become a film director.

-The other film was Hitchcock's Vertigo.
-I see.

-And Hwa-nyuh of 827?
-Yes, Hwa-nyuh of 82.

So I saw his latest film first,
like many other people.

-Many people of our generation did.
-That's true.

It was the last remake of The Housemaid,
which the director himself

made, and I ended up
watching the original last.

I see.

The first Kim Ki-young film that
I saw was Ban Geum-ryun.

-Really?
-I was in middle school.

But I couldn't really understand the story.

Actually, I went to the theater
to see something else playing at the theater at the time.

You know I was a middle
school student at the time.

Well, it says so much about
what kind of student you were.

She smokes a cigarette
by breaking off the filter.

Do you suppose she does that

-to get a stronger taste?
-or, she does it

to smoke it more slowly?

-The director was an ardent believer of Freud.
-He was.

The way he uses the image of
cigarettes in his films obviously

has s sexual meaning.

The way she breaks her cigarette
into two seems very violent.

Yes, and because this film is from 1960,
which seems like a part of

the 1950s, and in the 50s,
men used the expression "apres girls"

to label women that they were
attracted to and feared at the same time.

"Apres girls," meaning girls who presented an image of

of being unrestricted and free after the war,

which was also represented
by the image of them smoking.

The maid is smoking when she makes
her first appearance in the film.

We did see her mopping but...

Not counting those scenes...

You mean the first scene
when we can see her face.

Another important scene is
the last one, which seems to end

with a moral lesson, but
in the last scene dong-sik smokes.

Because the last scene reminds viewers

of previous smoking scenes,
it gives you an eerie feeling.

The first scene here in which
the maid is in the closet,

she appears to be smoking.
It had never been seen before in a film,

and it must have been shocking
to the audience at the time.

It seems to flaunt the image
of the femme fatale

that is hiding behind you.

It is not clear in the film, but
I think it is possible to speculate

that Gyeong-hui is using cigarettes

as a way to control the maid.

-Yes, that seems possible.
-And she has a line...

-She does.
-She says the line that

there was a reason
why she taught her how to smoke.

She is able to control her with one cigarette,
which implies the hierarchical order...

-Or exploitation?
-Yes.

The film is definitely making
a statement about the class order

in the factory and in society.

That is true.

In the film, there is no sexual
feeling between

Dong-sik and his wife.

There isn't, but still, you have a scene
like the one we are looking at now.

The scene between him and his wife
is depicted this way here,

but when you watch the two remakes
of the original that Kim directed,

the wife tries really hard
to seduce her husband.

Yes, but in this film,
the wife is pregnant, so it seems

inappropriate to show
any sexual feeling between them.

Yes, and the sexual feeling has been
all given to the young women.

I am not sure if this room
where the choir practices

is a studio or a movie set,
or if they borrowed

an auditorium and
dressed it up as a set,

but the wall is so...

The director decorated the wall
in a bizarre way.

The house, too. Dong-sik's house
has very strange patterns

on the wall.

In this scene, he covered the wall
with cloth, but it is not a curtain,

and the cloth has creases.
In this black and white film, without

any colors, the creases provide
an accentuated sense of texture,

and it makes the scene visually
enriching but also scary.

The visual design of the choir
room seems to be

-very expressionistic.
-It does.

It does give a very strong
impression of being expressionistic.

With the lights, too.

The sequence of scenes
seems very modern.

As soon as they hear the news
that Gwak Seon-Yeong has died,

the camera marches straight
to the corridor, the train whizzes by, and

they are already at her grave.
The scenes move very fast and

very effectively, too. And at the grave,
there is rain and lightning.

So the film sets the mood
for the fateful night right away.

Yes, and the story takes place
basically at two different places:

the two-story house

and the factory.

But this part of the film was shot
on a real location, not on a set,

and the place is
in the countryside.

The funeral was intentionally shot
at this location and added in the film.

This scene shows where
women like factory workers

and the maid come from.

-Yes.
-What social background they have.

-In a way.
-True.

The scene shows us that.

Here, you see Dong-sik's house,
and the film repeatedly shows

that the house is next to the railroad.

When Gyeong-hui goes to the house,
and Dong-sik is going back home,

the film always shows
the railroad in the backdrop.

You can hear the train in the house,
and it makes you think about

how the train carries
young girls from the countryside

to the city.

It also makes you compare
the train to the desire

that is speeding and
heading towards its end.

And the train scene is also used
to indicate a scene change

and to indicate that
time has passed.

The train scene in the film
seems to have

an image of regression rather than
an image of moving forward

-when you look at the line of its movement.
-Right.

So the train scene also symbolizes

an image of transgression.

Why do you think Dong-sik resisted
Gyeong-Hui's seduction?

I think she is the girl that
he desires most, but

Gwak Seon-yeong's death must have
triggered a sense of fear in him,

and because the factory is
his work place, any scandal

would lead to a detrimental
result financially.

Yes, I thought about that, too.

And he is getting paid
by Gyeong-hui for the lessons.

And because he works at the factory,
he has become

entangled with Gyeong-hui

-in many ways.
-He has.

This is the second funniest
scene in the film.

This is like the worst soap drama,
with the woman who is

-ripping her own clothes off.
-All By herself.

While she is doing that, he is saying
she should continue to come for her lessons.

Even at that moment,
he is worried about money.

So he finally sends her away only
to be faced with another temptation.

There she is without a bra,

and her hair is down
for the first time.

Yes, she always had it
braided until this scene.

The way Lee Eun-sim plays the maid
character here by covering

her own breasts is
just so ingenious.

The way she blinks her eyes seems
so amazingly modern, too.

She seems embarrassed and
so brazen at the same time

because she does it
while staring at him.

She is covering her breasts,
but not her nipples.

In the next scene, she is covering
her nipples, but

when you really think about it,
covering them seems

more provocative than
not covering them.

This scene is also similar to a scene
in Thirst. In the scene, the actress,

-Kim Ok-bin says, "I'm very shy."
-She does.

In that scene, she says it
while touching her breasts.

-And there is another scene with a cigarette.
-Yes.

This scene is also up to interpretation.

This is one of the most
important scenes in the film.

The way she rolls
her eyes like that.

-Her acting...
-It's impressive.

She must have acted
following the director's suggestions.

-Don't you think?
-Yes, I think so.

Kim Ki-young was a director
who had to have

his way about everything.

-The scene here...
-Yes?

When I saw it for the first time,
I thought when he touched the maid,

he had succumbed to the maid's seduction,
but when I saw it a second time,

I realized that might not be the case.

He is trying to leave, but

she blocks the window and closes it.
She is blocking him.

So he is actually pushing her away

to get her out of his way.
It could be the reason

why he touched her.

So he touches her, but
the maid squeezes her arms

with his hands under her armpits

as if she has put handcuffs on him.

After she makes sure
that he can't move,

she puts her feet
on top of his shoes.

Even at that point, Dong-sik looks
like he wants to leave.

The maid's seduction is much more
aggressive than I remembered,

and Dong-sik just gets dragged
into the next situation.

It made me think that maybe
I was influenced by this film

because in my films
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Thirst,

there are scenes in which
a woman's arm and legs are

wrapped around a man's body.

In Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,
there is a scene in which a girl

has her legs tightly around
her father like the one in this film.

Most of the male characters in
Director Kim's films are

incompetent and indecisive.

They are not the bread-
winner of their family,

and they often depend

on their wife financially.

In comparison, the wives in his films
have very specific jobs.

For example, the main female
character in Woman of Fire and

Hwa-nyuh of 82 own a chicken farm.

In this film, the wife makes clothes
with her sewing machine.

But the husband in Kim's films is
either an artist or

an intellectual of some sort.

-That is often the case.
-Yes.

So the man claims to be an artist, but

-all he does is create trouble.
-He does.

In this film, the husband
gives the impression of being

incompetent, indecisive,
and inept, but

if you watch the film more carefully,
he proves to be quite violent, too.

-He beats up the women.
-Quite often, yes.

Especially Gyeong-hui and the maid in this film.

-But he doesn't touch his wife.
-No.

In this film, when he slaps a woman,

she falls flat on the floor,
which creates, again,

the spatial image of who is on top
and who is on the bottom.

And the camera angle has the man
looking down and the woman looking up.

Yes, and the house is also
structured that way.

The maid's room and the husband's
piano are on the second floor.

The wife's sewing machine is
on the first floor, and the first floor is

contrasted to the second floor.
And the space that the two women

share is the kitchen.

And you can't tell where
the children's rooms are

even if you watch
the movie very carefully.

Later in the film, when the husband is
forced to sleep

in the maid's room, the girl sleeps

with her mother.

-After the boy dies.
-Yes.

Until that point, the film doesn't let you
know where the children sleep.

When they were building the second floor
and shooting the scenes there,

they must have considered
the line of movement a lot.

Now, the maid moves into the veranda
to peep into the next room,

and that line of her movement
is very important.

The film does not show you
where this house is located, but

watching some scenes shot on location,
I believe they found a house

that they already had in mind,
and with that as the model,

they must have built
the set accordingly.

When they looked for a possible
model for the house,

they must have known
exactly what they wanted

because the maid's room is
connected to Dong-sik's room

not from inside the house,
but from the outside.

So they can go into the rooms
through the door, but they can

also go in or peep inside
through the window.

And the film uses this layout
to the maximum.

That's right, and there are so many
scenes shot from outside of the window.

And by using those mis-en-
scenes in the film,

it shows how

trapped these characters feel.

The tracking shot was used to
show the connection between

the two rooms, or to show
a movement that either

goes forward or backward.

But the tracking shot scenes that
show how the two rooms are connected

are really impressive.

And they are emphasized in the film.

The scene here, to me, is almost
like a fly in the ointment.

It is not really necessary, and

it also is not interesting.

The film wants to show
how lost Dong-sik feels

by putting him outside the house
in a changed scenery.

For me, this scene and
the taxi scene that follow

-reminds of a scene from Aimless Bullet.
-I know which scene you mean.

-Especially the taxi scene here.
-You're right.

The driver says, "He came into
my cab like an aimless bullet”

And like in Aimless Bullet, there isn't
a place that he wants to go to.

He says, "Take me anywhere."

He does.

The bartender shaking the bottle like that,
don't you think it has a meaning?

It does have a lot of sexual meaning.

The acting here can be seen
as a bit conventional.

Their lines are also a bit awkward
and so is their acting.

Back then, directors must have
had tremendous difficulty

shooting sex scenes.

The film showed her feet
when she stepped on his shoes.

-You mean her bare feet.
-Yes.

Things like that enable viewers
to feel and imagine so much more.

We know how Hitchcock got away

with censorship from
so many examples.

Director Kim also overcame
censorship by using

very creative images that are
compact with meaning.

In a way, censorship made
them more creative.

-By having restrictions.
-Right.

In Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot,
when Marilyn Monroe

kisses Tony Curtis,

-he spreads his legs up in the air.
-He does.

A scene like that illustrates
the physical reaction that is

happening to the man,
in an indirect way.

Everything in this film is
so compact with meaning,

with everything being calculated
and nothing that is unnecessary,

so the slight inadequacy in the bar
scene that we just saw

seems to stand out.

I think it's because other scenes
are so exceptional that

the bar scene seems like it was
an extra attached to the film.

-You mean like an additional modifier.
-Yes.

Now we find out that
the maid is pregnant.

If you were to look at Woman of Fire
and Hwa-nyuh of 82,

which were Kim Ki-young's own
remakes of The Housemaid,

and Carnivorous Animal, which is considered
to be the remake of

-Chungnyeo...
-Carnivorous Animal, yes.

In all five films, the man is

like a territory, and two women
are standing on

opposite sides and are
engaged in a serious battle

over the territory,
while the man just waits for

them to decide what they are
going to do with him.

That's right, but what is funny is
that the man is just a territory,

but he thinks he is reigning
over these women.

He holds on to to his desire
to rule over the women.

Dong-sik seemed to be just
a music teacher who teaches

the choir and gives piano lessons,
but here he has a pencil

in his hand while playing the piano.

-He is a composer.
-We find out now that

he is a composer.

In the director's other films after
this one, the husband continues

-to be a composer.
-He does.

The wife's job changes, but
the husband is always a composer.

That's right.

The biggest difference between
The Housemaid and Woman of Fire

and Hwa-nyuh of 82 is that in this film,
the maid seduces the man,

but in the other two films,
the women are raped by the man.

That is a big difference.

All the doors in this house are

sliding doors.

Which is different from the houses
from this time, and

they also contribute to making
this scene quite unique.

The patterns on the wall look like
a spider's web or a beehive.

They do.

And the sliding doors really capture
the psychology of the characters

in this small space

very effectively.

If the doors were not sliding but hinged,
you would have a problem

with the camera angle
if you wanted to show

a person behind or by the door.

But with sliding doors, it is a matter
of how much you have the door

open to show the person behind it,
even from the front angle.

That's so right.

Also, when actors open or close a door,
they have a very limited space,

but once they push a door open,
the space opens up for them to act in.

-Or when they pull a door open.
-Yes.

But with the doors in this film,
you just have to slide them open.

So the actors can close or open them
really fast, or they can stand

very close to each other with
only the door between them.

Without any unnecessary movement.

So when you slide it closed,
the open space suddenly

becomes like a wall.

You saw white women
dancing on TV, which has

now changed into a doll that
looks like a white woman.

This scene is related to dreams
that many Koreans had

at the time, the people who were
not a part of the middle class.

We mentioned the symbolic
meaning of curry rice.

-Yes.
-And also the meaning of a two-story house.

And a piano.

That, too.

They are all related.

One of the things that Director
Kim was very concerned with

-was the lighting in the film.
-Right.

If you take a closer look at the lighting,
you do see problems.

For example,
where is the source of the light?

And you can see that the director used
the lighting the way he wanted.

Even in scenes done
in broad daylight,

you see several shadows of
a character at once,

sometimes two or three shadows
at a time, which makes

-no logical sense.
-No.

So you see that
sometimes in his films,

but it is obvious that Director Kim
was more interested in

-illustrating characters' emotions.
-You mean with the visual effect of lighting.

Yes, that was more important to him.

And he also had a very keen sense
when it came to discovering new actors.

He did.

He usually had star actors in his films.

He did, but at the same time,
he always found

new faces for important
roles in his films.

He did.

Lee Eun-sim, who played the maid
in the film, and Yoon Yeo-jeong,

-for example...
-And Lee Hwa-si.

Ah, Lee Hwa-si.

-The legendary actress.
-Yes.

He discovered
all these actresses.

Even Park Jung-ja.

For the first time.

Kim Ji-mi, too.

-And Moon Hee, too.
-That's right.

-He was the one who discovered these actresses.
-He discovered

talented actresses who went on
to become stars, and

he was famous as a director
who made actresses into stars.

It's hard to imagine now, but
Kim Ki-young was a director

who produced box office hits.

According to records, he was the one
who directed the biggest

box office hits in 1971 and 1972.

They were Woman of Fire
and Chungnyeo.

Everyone in our parents' generation
knew him, and they all knew

his films, such as The Housemaid,
Woman of Fire, and Chungnyeo.

And his last film, which was
released in 1984, and

we often talk about how he and
his films were rediscovered

at BIFF in 1997.

You wonder how this director,
who produced cinematic masterpieces,

could become so forgotten
in the course of 13 years.

In some aspects,
he did it to himself

by making B-movies after

his film Transgression.

I really liked some of his films
that he made after this one,

but critics and the media turned
their backs on his films,

and he also slowly became
forgotten by the audience.

And wasn't he famous
for being eccentric and

not caring at all about how people
in the industry thought of him?

-Well, there are legendary stories about him.
-True.

He was famous for saying he was
the only one who had the answer,

or that he cooked beef in secret
and ate it all by himself.

You saw the scene in which
the wife, played by Ju Jeung-nyeo,

throws the TV and sewing machine.
She was one of the top actresses at the time.

According to records that I had
found, she was the owner of

a film production company under her own name
two or three years before making this film.

-Really?
-Yes, in the 50s.

So she was an actress who
also had power in the production aspect.

She was one of the most popular
actresses at the time, and

even compared to Lee Eun-sim,
her acting is just as intense.

True.

Towards the end of the film,
she is scarier than other characters.

She is.

The wife is the character
who goes through

the biggest changes in the story.

Compared to her indecisive husband,
she makes the important

decisions at crucial moments.

Sometimes her decisions seem criminal
or sometimes she uses persuasion,

-but she knows almost instinctively...
-She does.

That she has to survive.

And in order to survive,
she makes swift decisions.

And in the director's series of films,
the one who survives is the wife.

Yes.

In the scene we have here...

She looks so delicate and pretty.

She is walking up the stairs in
a white ramie dress with the light

shining on her from the side, and
when she lifts her skirt like that,

she looks as if she is
about to dance.

She goes up to the second floor, and
the contrast here is quite grotesque.

The wife in a pretty white dress is
standing next to the maid, who is

banging on the piano.

Lee Eun-sim was only 19 at the time.

I believe she was in one other film
before making this one.

But after getting so much
attention for this film,

she didn't make that
many movies after it.

-She was in a few movies.
-Two or three, I believe.

And we have only
the titles of those movies.

Another aspect of this film
that surprises us

is the way it uses sound.

Considering Korean films at the time,
this film definitely stands out

for its visual aspect, and at this time,
people did not pay much

attention to sound; however,
in this film, the sounds are

loaded with meanings.

There is the sound
of the sewing machine,

the sound of the piano, and
the sound of the train passing by,

or the sound of the girl walking up
the stairs with crutches.

There is also the creaking
sound from the stairs.

And later, the film has the sound of
the maid's head banging on the stairs.

That is the most shocking sound.

And these sounds are all part of
the narrative, meaning that

Director Kim did not finish filming
the movie and then thought about

how to mix the sound by trying
different means of editing.

-He knew from the beginning.
-From the beginning, it was done as planned.

-He had a definite plan how to use sound.
-He did.

For example, in the scene in which
the husband confesses that he had an affair.

And the woman is pregnant.
The wife asks, "Who is the woman?"

-And you hear the sound of the piano.
-You do.

When they hear the banging
on the piano from upstairs,

the wife says,
"So she is the one.”

So they don't have
to talk more about it.

We have another
crucial scene here.

On the top of the stairs,
she stands there as a scary

silhouette, in spite of the fact
that she is out of focus.

If you think about it, this is the most
important scene in the film.

-But they close the door.
-They do.

They only allude to what is about
to happen, and you only hear the sound.

And when they open the door,
you see the famous scene shot from above.

It is the famous scene.

The characters and the camera
move backward, and the door

is closed to create more space.

The line is drawn between the two
different classes of people.

-Yes, the camera shows the outside again.
-It really is one of the best scenes ever.

It is.

I remember seeing similar
scenes in Woman of Fire

and Hwa-nyuh of 82.

It is so cleanly done, without losing
any of the shocking impact.

It makes you imagine
by not showing it to you.

-It is so elegantly done.
-It is.

This scene in which Dong-sik is carrying
the maid upstairs later becomes

the scene in which she is
clinging to his leg.

-As they come down.
-It makes a contrast.

The way they enter
the room is really similar to

the way the maid dies at the end.

And here, Kim Jin-kyu's acting is
just superb.

He looks so sick and tired and
doesn't know what to do.

-He must hate himself so much.
-And wondering how he

got himself in this mess.

My wife laughed so much
at this scene.

When you think about it,
the most important year in Korean

film history was the year between
the April Revolution in 1960

and the May Coup in 1961.

In Hollywood, they consider the most
important time in the Hollywood

film industry to be between 1939
and 1940, when films like

Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz,
and Citizen Kane came out.

In Korea, the masterpieces by the so-
called three most

important directors were
all made in 1960:

this film, Mother and a Guest,

and Aimless Bullet.

The maid is coaxed by the wife
to abort her baby, which

the maid carries out
almost immediately.

She does.

The story moves so fast that
viewers might feel uneasy.

What makes Kim Ki-young's films
so interesting is the fact that

they are so unpredictable.

That's true.

And his films become
more and more so.

His later films, you mean.

The story keeps heading towards
somewhere which seems unimaginable,

but as viewers follow the story,
they will ask themselves

what they would have done
if they were in the character's position.

What would one do
if he was seduced like Dong-sik?

Then, you get to understand,
caught between the two women,

how he just doesn't know
what to do. The film is

able to draw out sympathetic
reactions from its viewers.

So the story is not so preposterous,
and it makes viewers

identify with the characters.
Compared to films from its time,

however, it takes the story in
a very different direction.

When the wife is walking up
the stairs, she passes the maid

as if she is looking at a cockroach.
She is afraid that

her dress might touch her.

It looks very cruel.

The wife treats the maid the way she
reacted to seeing the mouse in the house.

She does.

What's interesting about
the scene is that it ends

without any sense of conclusion.

The maid is crying and
clinging onto the wife,

the wife is screaming out,
"Honey, honey, help me!"

And the husband is just
pulling his hair out.

The scene just ends without
showing how everything ends.

And there is the sound of
a train passing by.

And it is a loud sound.

The sound is overlayed
onto the scene.

So the maid loses her baby, but

the wife gives birth to her baby.

That's what happens.

The maid is resentful because
they care so much about their baby

while she was forced
to kill her own baby.

Yes, that is really scary.

That is what makes
this film so scary.

And it is known that this film is
based on a real story.

-Did it happen in Gimcheon?
-Yes.

There was a real murder of
a five-year-old boy. A woman

who was involved with a man
drowned his son.

And this film is based on
that real murder.

This is another strange scene
because it is just chaotic

in the house, and in the midst of it,
the wife gives birth,

but the husband was out
while his wife was having their baby.

And he comes back home
as if it were no big deal,

and you wouldn't think that
he would pay more attention

to his pet than to his own baby.

He comes into the room and
doesn't even look at his wife.

This is a scene that
makes you wonder

what's going on in his head.

Kim Ki-young occupies
such an important place in

Korean film history
because before him,

films were considered simply
as a vehicle for a story,

meaning films were just
another way to tell a story.

-Only a means to tell a story.
-Yes.

But Kim is very important in film
history because his films began

from ideas that were so divergent
from that understanding of films.

You cannot say that
this is a realistic film.

This film is definitely different
from other films from that time,

but you cannot say that it completely
disregards the logical coherence

of the story.

In that aspect, what do you think
about those points

in Kim's films that could have
been smoothed out, but

are shown in a quite
crude manner?

Sometimes I do feel that he did go
slightly overboard in his films,

but at least in The Housemaid,
although he does tell a violent story,

it really doesn't have that
many logical problems

compared to his other films.

The children in this film
are also interesting.

They are not like normal
children in other films.

Especially the boy.

The boy, played by Ahn Sung-ki,
is really mean and ill-mannered.

-He is a terrible boy.
-He really is.

But the way he is depicted might be
close to how boys are at that age.

There are some boys
who are like him.

How realistic the boy should be
portrayed was up to the director,

but if you look at it
from a class difference,

even the children have
no respect for the maid.

They use her, but at the same time,
they are afraid of her.

They have an unreasonable
fear of the maid

from the beginning, saying she would
use the rat poison on them.

You wonder why they are
so afraid of her, and

why they think she is such
a person of importance in the house.

And it is not about
who is nice and who is bad.

The boy seems meaner, and
the girl seems as if she would

understand the maid,
but she doesn't at the end.

And she says let's not deal
with someone who is crazy.

You can see how hostile
these children are

towards the maid.

The way the femme fatale is
treated in this film is

different from other film noir.

Of course, because this is
not a film noir.

The way this film sees
the maid character is...

how should I put it...

-it is very ambiguous.
-It is.

The film sees her as someone
who should be vanquished.

Like a villainess.

On the other, it really takes
a deeper look into the character.

Yes, the film makes you sympathetic
towards her after she loses her baby.

It is also because the people in the house
are just as mean and evil.

True.

They do become more
and more evil.

The man makes her have a baby and
the woman makes her lose that baby.

Makes her lose the baby.

-It's such a famous line.
-It is.

Because the film sums it up so nicely
for viewers, they have no choice

but to nod their heads
and say that it is true.

And the way Kim Jin-kyu acts
in the scene is quite vicious.

Looking like a character
from a gangster film, he comes in

with his eyes cast on the floor,
and suddenly he slaps her.

And usually when people
slap someone,

their hand comes from the outside
and goes in, but

he slaps her from inside out.

-So the way his hand snaps looks strange.
-It does.

And they leave her like that
when she has been starving for

three days, and bleeding, too.

After they force
to lose her baby,

they make her eat like a cat
eating trash on the street

or a mouse in the sewer.

By showing her in that state,
the film confuses viewers

as to which character
they should identify with,

and who they should side with.

An angle like that is
impossible in real life.

Because there is a wall
behind the cupboard.

We use scenes like that one
nowadays when we are

shooting someone opening
a refrigerator or microwave.

The director used it in this film.

He was not hesitant at all
to use a camera angle like that.

The scene in which the maid is carrying
the water is really strange, too.

-It is a very intense scene.
-It is.

I think this scene was probably
influenced by Hitchcock.

Or Akira Kurosawa.

I'm sure he was also influenced
by Japanese films, too.

Like Shohei Imamura.

According to records, there was
no director who knew film

trends better than Kim
Ki-young at the time.

I'm sure.

People in Korea did not have many
opportunities to watch Japanese films.

Especially compared to American and
European movies that were released.

Director Kim lived in Japan
for a couple of years.

-He did.
-And he was fluent in Japanese.

He went to Japan
even in the 90s to

watch films.

The story is so twisted here.
It makes you think about

how the director is
seeing this maid.

She causes the boy to die, but
she doesn't kill him by feeding him

the rat poison. He thinks she did,
so he becomes so shocked that

he runs down the stairs
and dies.

It seems the director did not
want to make the maid

into a complete monster.

That's true, and the one who really
carries out her plan to murder

the maid is actually the wife.

-She does.
-She puts the rat poison in the soup.

The maid only plays
a game with the poison.

She scares the boy by drinking
the water and spitting it back out.

But in the director's remakes of
this film, the boy is actually thrown

by the maid and is killed.

She does.

When you think about the scene,
you can see how Im Sang-soo

was also very influenced
by Kim Ki-young.

-Like that scene in...
-Yes, of course.

In A Good Lawyer's Wife,

there is the scene in which
a boy is killed.

And Im Sang-soo also directed
a remake of The Housemaid.

He did.

Now viewers might wonder

where the story is going
to go now.

The boy just falls down from
the stairs and dies.

He does.

When you think that
this must be the ending,

the wife says let's not do anything
about their boy's death.

For me, this is the strangest part

of the story.

She just saw her own boy die
in front of her eyes, but

she tells her husband not
to report it and to go on to work

because if he gets fired,
they won't be able to make a living.

Holding her dead son and
looking like the statue of Pieta

with tears in her eyes, she looks up
to the camera upstairs,

and she delivers that line
which doesn't seem possible.

It really is a very, very
strange turn in the story.

But if viewers were able to follow
the story up to this point,

-they should be able to understand her decision.
-True.

Because her character has
been set up that way,

viewers are able to accept
her decision here.

As always, everything is connected
to desire and money

in Kim's films, and even
in this twist of the story,

the connection to money
is emphasized.

This film is really compulsive.

It keeps on using the stairs,

the doors are slid open and closed,
and it continues to use

the recurring tracking shots,

and the piano and other props.

They are repeated to the point
that you could get

-tired of them.
-They are repeated again and again.

They are repeated, but

they are not boring
or monotonous.

They are meticulously
calculated to fit in perfectly

into different situations.
The eye contact doesn't work here.

Dong-sik looks in a different direction.

It's no big deal, though.

Their eyes do not meet.

In this film, you see mice, but
in Kim's remakes of this film,

he uses chickens.

He uses mice and chickens.

The wife's leg has pins and needles,
but the Korean expression

uses the word "mouse"”
to describe it. And it happens

because she worked too hard
on the sewing machine.

So you have a scene in which
the husband massages her leg.

-It is a funny scene.
-Slightly funny, yes.

The director must have chosen
mice or chicken because

they symbolize fertility.

Fertility or virility is connected
to the sexual desire

in his films.

Now you see the girl
planning to harm

the maid.

It could be because the maid
caused the boy to die.

I don't know who played
this girl character, but

she was really cast well
for the role.

Her face is not a face of a girl,
and her expressions, too.

She looks like a woman except
that her body is small.

She garners sympathy
because she limps, but

she always looks sad,
which plays a key role

in making this family

look very unstable.

She is the one who
makes the family look

unstable from the very
beginning of the film.

Now the relationship between
the maid and the wife

-has reversed.
-It has.

And it shows how
it became reversed.

And you don't get to see a man
who is that pathetic.

Dong-sik doesn't decide
to go to the maid's room,

or because he is sexually
drawn to the woman.

He goes up because
his wife tells him to go up.

-So he goes up.
-He does.

Throughout the entire film, he only
makes one decision on his own,

which is to die
together with the maid.

-Even then...
-That is the only one.

Even then the maid tells him that

-he has to die with her.
-If not, she says

she will kill his wife.
So he makes a decision.

But he was pushed to
even make that decision.

The maid says to choose whether
he should die or his wife.

You can say he does make
a big decision to end his life,

but he was forced to decide.

This reversal of power in
a relationship between one man

and two women is often
introduced in Kim's films.

In Chungnyeo, for example,
the wife lets her husband

stay with a prostitute] mistress
to cure his impotency,

and to do that, she even buys
the mistress a house.

The wife does.

But at a certain point in the story,
the two women decide to share

the man, one has him before midnight
and the other after midnight.

You can always find a moment
like this one in Kim's films.

This is also a very bizarre scene.

She bites him on his shoulder.

And later she covers him
with her hair.

She covers his face
with her hair.

She has her legs wrapped
around his legs.

It's hard to figure out
the meaning of her actions.

They are really bizarre.

She looks like a snake.

Or, the image seems to say that
by covering him with her hair,

she wants to devour him
and be one with him.

In that scene, even the legs of the chair
give you a powerful impression.

They do.

She looks like she is
about to eat him.

Or, she is trying to cover up
his humiliation.

If you take it further, you can
get to images in a vampire film.

Now the bizarre scene cuts to
the handle of the sewing machine.

What Kim does in a scene
like this one is that

when characters have a change
of mind, they don't say it out loud,

but instead, they perform
a specific action, like

holding the scissors in this case.

He tries to show you the changes
that are taking place

in his characters through
these actions.

-But she doesn't use the scissors.
-She doesn't.

What is so carefully done here
is that when the wife

wants to kill the maid,
she can't find the rat poison.

But when she looks for either salt or pepper
and opens the cupboard,

she finds the rat poison
sitting there.

That's when she decides
again to kill her.

It also gives you the impression that
it was fated that way.

The rat poison wasn't there
because the maid took it.

It was used to kill the squirrel,
and then

it was switched.

Unlike the sliding doors in the house,
you have to pull the door

of the cupboard, which gives you
a different feeling altogether.

It does.

I didn't think about it before,
but it really does.

The fear in this film is
created by things

you drink or eat.

-Things you can't do without.
-You have to eat and drink.

Right.

Because it makes it scary
for you to eat or drink,

the fear seems so primal
and real.

There is a scene in which the children
refuse to eat for two days,

and the maid feeds them
rice by force.

In films from other countries...

This scene here...

Yes...

It's such a strange scene.

It's like a scene from a Hitchcock
or De Palma film.

They are a mother
and a daughter.

-They are not hostile to each other.
-They are on the same side.

And they want the same thing.

But the girl's stare...

The wife has to carry out
her plan to kill the maid

while her daughter is watching her,
and the sense of guilt that this must create...

It is so surprising to see a scene like
this one in a Korean film from 1960.

Also, the scene in which the maid
takes the girl's father to her room

-in front of her.
-Again, in a movie from 1960.

That is quite shocking, too.

The girl looks pleadingly at her father
and tells him not to go with the maid.

But the wife tells him to go.

And the girl says,
"Dad, but don't drink the water."

She does.

That is the moment
when you are not sure whether

you should laugh or cry.

The scene in which I laughed really
loudly was when the maid

calls him "Honey" out of the blue
after having sex.

She calls him "Honey," but
the man is so startled, and he says

"Don't call me anything!"

She calls herself Dong-sik's
second wife, and he doesn't know

what to do with her,
which just makes you laugh.

It really is a scary moment.

A nightmarish moment
for any married man.

But it can make
the audience laugh.

The positioning of the characters
and the way they are dressed

are making a clear contrast here.

Yes.

The maid is the only
one in a black dress.

Here, the maid is making a case:
at least the wife has the hope

of saving her husband
and her family.

However, the maid doesn't
have even that.

It makes you
nod your head.

The wife has
everything to lose.

Right.

But the maid has nothing
to lose now.

Which is why they are able
to go at each other.

Now, the wife is obsessed with
working at her sewing machine.

In Kim's films, you have men
who are dominated by

and dependent on their wife's

financial ability.

Some see that
as a projection of

Kim's own personal
relationship with his wife.

People do talk about that,
but there is really

-no way for us to know for sure.
-It really was between them.

Kim's wife was a dentist.

Yes.

And she was financially
responsible for the family.

And Kim only cared
for his vision of art.

He did.

She provided for him.

And people say that they were
very happy in their marriage.

Yes.

It was a tragedy,
but they did

pass away together.

There are those things
on the table and the piano.

-You see scenes like this one often in this film.
-We do.

A scene like this one
really exudes the feel

of a horror film.

It is also because of the music.

He could have used other music here,
but he consistently uses

similar, horror-sounding music
that uses only horn instruments,

percussion, and piano.
And he rarely uses

string instruments.

He really doesn't use
string instruments.

The music is really unnerving.

The music does not hesitate
to shock you.

The maid made a threat
to the children and made it look like

she would feed them
with poison, but she doesn't.

She didn't do that
to the boy.

Or to the girl.

The film seems very violent
and cruel, and

the maid really seems like a villainess,
but in spite of all that,

you do feel for her.

It is a film that maintains
a sense of integrity by

portraying the characters
with a sense of humanity.

According to records, this film
as well as Woman of Fire

were such big hits at the time, and
the audiences were so engrossed

with the films that they screamed
in the middle of them,

-"Kill that bitch!"
-Yes, I read that, too.

That it happened very often.

Many middle-class families
at the time had a maid.

So there were many similar
cases as the story of this film.

I'm sure there were.

And the expression "second wife"
wasn't so odd at the time.

I'm sure many women
in the audience had an instinctive

fear of it.

I found this scene sad.

Looking at this scene, the maid here
has no thought of killing herself.

She is eating because she wants
to live, and because of this scene,

it becomes quite sad

when she finally decides
to kill herself.

At crucial moments in the film,
it always rains.

The night when Dong-sik succumbs
to the maid's seduction,

lightning strikes a tree.

-Yes.
-And the smoke from the tree

symbolizes the sex
between the two.

This is another
strange scene.

What I find most interesting about
the film is the way it uses

the character Gyeong-hui.

The maid really feels this intense
jealousy not towards the wife,

but towards Gyeong-hui.

I think there is even a saying
about that...

The maid used to call her, "Sister,"
but she doesn't anymore.

This is the last time
we see Gyeong-hui.

Yes.

The way Gyeong-hui leaves the scene
is quite interesting, too.

The maid brings cigarettes
when she didn't have to, and

she reminds her of the memories
related to cigarettes.

Like the way the wife grabbed
the scissors, the maid drops the plates,

and one of them breaks, and

-now she has a knife in her hand.
-And it gives her

ideas, which she carries out.

-If the plates didn't break...
-Right...

Following the logical
process of the scene...

-And that awkward way she re-enters the room.
-With her body lowered.

We saw the bars in the window
in the tracking shot, and

she looks like a predator.

Like a Carnivorous Animal
from one of Kim's film titles.

The scene which shows the characters
this close up is the first in this film.

Before this, we saw a possibility
of the family continuing

their life as if they have
somehow come to terms

with their positioning
in the power balance, but

this is the moment
when that is shattered.

-The tension is reignited.
-It is.

Now it is heading towards an end
that cannot be reversed.

Gyeong-hui is injured and
runs away from the house.

She could be going
to the police or

to the factory and say
what took place at Dong-sik's house.

So they would have
to face it somehow.

Right.

They even hid the cause
of their son's death,

and tried so hard to hide
the maid as the family secret,

but now it might be

known to the outside.

Which is why the director had the close-
up scene on the maid's face.

-The closest one in the film.
-Right.

So there was a reason why

that the scene that shows the characters
this close up was necessary in the film.

What is difficult
to understand here is...

Aren't those shadows
just fantastic?

What is difficult to understand
here is why the maid

is looking at Beethoven's
bust as she is dying.

Is she looking at it just
to show that she is dying by

how the bust becomes blurry?

Or, is Beethoven's bust
a prop that symbolizes

the fact that this is a middle-
class family with an artist father

and that this family is familiar
with Western culture?

Is that a prop that
symbolizes all those ideas?

But you see it becoming blurry
as the maid looks at it here.

Yes.

The maid is told not
to touch the piano, but

she keeps pestering him
to teach her the piano.

When she first comes into the family,
she says she wants

to learn how to sew
from the wife.

But at some moment, she says
she wants to learn the piano

like Gyeong-hui.

In short, she is expressing her desire
for something that she shouldn't desire.

And that something is
symbolized by Beethoven,

which is why she sees the bust
while being choked.

But you see the traditional masks

-above the piano.
-Yes, there are a couple of them.

The masks used
in the mask dance.

Do you think the director used them
to create an eerie feeling?

I don't know. There are
dolls in the room, too.

Yes, there are a lot of
things in this room.

The scene shows Dong-sik's arms
hanging helplessly like that

from the window. It is pouring rain
and his arms look so helpless.

It is a scene that

-visually summarizes the film.
-Visually, it does.

That one image.

Now is the climax of the film.

Yes.

Up to this point, the audience is
wondering whether the poison is real.

The maid could have
switched it with sugar water.

She switched it once so
why not a second time.

So that could be poison or not,
and she said to drink it together,

-but she could drink it alone.
-Right.

If one of them doesn't drink it,
who would it be?

She already used this trick
with the children.

So the audience must be remembering
that it happened before.

They were tricked a couple of
times in the film.

Viewers have to watch
this scene wondering

whether they are really
drinking the poison

or if both of them would
drink it.

If we were to think about it,
wouldn't we think

that the maid would
drink it first?

I did, too, but

-in the film, it is the opposite.
-Right.

So viewers now would think
she is not going to drink it.

She is such a cunning woman.

Now Dong-sik talks
to the maid as if

-he understands her for the first time.
-He does.

And what the film has
developed up to this point, the tricks

that she has played and the turns and
twists in the story, is coming together.

What the maid says here is
really inconsistent.

She says she wants to live
with him forever in heaven.

But she also says what good is
happiness when you are dead.

You can be happy only
when you're alive.

So she ends up contradicting
what she said before.

It's like the last line
in your film, Thirst.

It is.

And a moment later she says
if they are not together now,

she won't be able to have him
even in heaven, so

she tries to stop him

from going to his wife.

She seems to be just rambling.

Their hands clasped...

It is one of the most impressive
scenes in the film.

They have to unclasp their hands
for her to give him a cigarette.

In the film, the image of hands
is very important.

Like the hand that turns
the sewing machine.

The hand that holds a smoke
or plays the piano.

And finally the hands
that are clasped.

The night when they had sex
for the first time, her hands were clasped

behind his back. Her hands look
so determined, like the hands

of the famous Nongae, who killed
a Japanese general by clasping

her hands around him and
jumping to their death.

The clasped hands manifest
the joining of their desires.

As in the case when Gyeong-hui is
taking her piano lesson.

Yes. That image was
inserted in the scene.

Now he pushes her hand away.

That motion...

If it wasn't directed by Kim,
that would have looked comical.

He looks like
he is giving up.

She looks so desperate and sad as she
tries to hold his hand for the last time.

But he pushes her hand
away like that.

He seems so heartless
and cruel.

In the film, the image of hands
symbolizes desire.

It does.

In that sense, the image is
indicative of his desire.

She is holding onto his neck.

And later she clings onto his leg.

She says, "If I let you go now,
I won't be able to find you in heaven."

From the maid’s point of view,
it really is a heart-wrenching line.

-You see the shadow...
-Yes, the shadow.

On the ceiling.

You see the same scene
in Hwa-nyuh of 82.

I saw that film in a huge theater
with only a handful of people,

and there was the same scene
in which the woman was

dragged down the stairs
with her head banging

on every step of the stairs.
In Hwa-nyuh of 82, the house

is bigger, so the banging
sounds echoed louder.

And because the technology
for sound effects was better

than the time when The Housemaid
was made, it sounded

more realistic, that banging
sound on the stairs.

It looked more dangerous for
Na Young-hee, who played the maid

in Hwa-nyuh of 82, and it must have
hurt her head when filming it.

Watching it, you can also feel
the pain on your own head.

-The acting here is so well done...
-Right.

So you can feel the desperation
in your bones from this scene.

The way this scene is structured, too.

-It is so detailed.
-Right.

Exhausted from work,
the wife has fallen asleep.

She has been obsessed

-with work.
-She has been consumed by it.

It is not about making money,
but it is much more than that.

-It has been an obsession.
-It has.

It has been her only escape,
a way for her to forget.

Many female characters in
Kim's movies suffer from

some kind of mental illness.

In Woman of Fire, the main female
character suffers from epilepsy.

Right.

In Hwa-nyuh of 82, the maid suffers
from some mental breakdown.

-Is it from a sense of guilt in the film?
-I think so.

I can't remember it clearly.

-You see again...
-You do...

You see the sewing
machine turning again.

We saw the machines
turning in the fabric mill

-in the first scene of the film.
-We did.

It is a scene that matches
that first scene.

You can see so clearly
how this film was meticulously

conceived, planned, and
filmed from the beginning.

When there are two characters
in conversation, they always

stand in a position that shows
their hierarchical relationship.

One is positioned physically
higher than the other.

After The Housemaid was re-discovered
in the late 90s and gained

international recognition,
the film was restored in 2008.

I was curious how international
audiences would receive the film.

A couple of months ago, I had a chance
to meet Director Martin Scorsese

and other people in the film industry.
During the meeting,

The Housemaid became one of
the conversation topics, and

Director Scorsese said,
"It's a cinematic masterpiece.”

"You have to see it if you haven't
already."” He said this in front of

Marion Cotillard, Paolo Sorrentino,
and Fatih Akin, and

I felt so proud even though
it wasn't my film.

-I can see why you felt so proud.
-I was very proud.

Scorsese also played an important
role in restoring this film.

Right.

The man dies at the end,
which is...

-a very shocking conclusion.
-It is.

-Usually, films have the mistress die at the end.
-True.

The one who survives is the wife,
with her tenacious instinct

-to survive.
-Right.

-And in the remake...
-Here, you hear the sound of the baby crying.

-And you also hear...
-The sound of a train again.

Here is the problematic scene.

The audience now could burst
out laughing at this scene,

and I did, too, when I saw it
for the first time.

When I watched it again and
thought about why he did this,

I was able to understand
Kim's reasons in a way.

Many people think that he had this ending due to
the censorship at the time, which is not true.

I think it was done in
consideration of the audience.

After watching so many
horrendous things in the film,

the audience probably would
not have wanted to leave

the theater feeling so
disturbed and troubled.

Doesn't the maid look so cute
and innocent there?

When people watched the film
in the theater, they must have

-laughed watching the ending.
-I think so, too.

I'm sure the ending scene was because of the
director's consideration of the audience.

The maid was the one
who smoked behind the frame.

-Here it is different.
-Right.

Dong-sik is the one
who's smoking.

And the film asks the audience
to make sense of the ending.

Dong-sik says,
"What would you have done?"

"Would you have done differently?"

It becomes almost inter-
active at the end.

Dong-sik winks at the audience, and
the film ends on a very sweet note.

The film is very cunning
because Dong-sik is actually addressing

the men in the audience by asking,
"What would you have done?"

Women in the audience must
have been quite familiar

with the situation of having
a live-in maid in their house

because many middle-class
people in the audience

had a live-in maid at the time.

So by throwing a question like
"What would you have done?"

Would not have made the audience
feel at ease. It could have

had the adverse effect of making
them feel very uncomfortable.

You mean the film ending
wasn't a moral lesson.

-It is only pretending to be one.
-I see.

So this is the end of the film,
and it is the time

for us to end our commentary
for The Housemaid.

It's been several years
since I have watched the film,

and I have to say I really
enjoyed watching it again.

It is a great film.

I believe it is the dream of
every director to make a film

like this one and make his or her
contribution to film history.

I will try my best
to make that happen.

Thank you for your commentary
on the film today.

-Thank you.
-Thank you.