Upstairs, Downstairs (Part I)

Of the many films made during South Korea's "Golden Age" of cinema, two that are referenced repeatedly are Yu Hyonmok's Aimless Bullet and Kim Ki-young's The Housemaid. Both films, recently rediscovered, have been traveling the festival and repertory circuit. Aimless Bullet was also voted greatest Korean film of all time in 1999 by Korean film critics. Made within one year of each other, they both address issues of family life and survival in the years following the end of the Korean War, yet their approaches couldn't be more different. Seeing the two films within a few days of each other is quite an experience -- while one family suffers terribly as a result of wanting to live the high life, the other is stuck in a pit of despair that borders on the inhuman. Life in Seoul circa 1960 was, for many, a constant fight for survival. The families in both films find themselves in desperate situations, albeit for very different reasons, and their equally tragic conclusions are powerful criticisms of the times. Both Aimless Bullet and The Housemaid begin as domestic melodramas -- one of the most popular (and formulaic) genres of the time -- but soon become something much darker. As The Housemaid opens, music teacher Tong-sik, his wife, and their two children are seated in the living room of their large two-story western style house. The first thing we notice is that while the husband is relaxing and reading the paper, the wife is hard at work at her sewing machine -- not making clothes for the family, but earning additional money so the family can indulge in material items --a bigger house, a television, a piano, a housemaid. The family is presented as strictly upstanding and moral -- they will play by the rules in order to maintain the lifestyle they've aspired to, and, as we will see, are willing to endure psychological torture to avoid slipping back down the ladder. When a student innocently hands Ton-sik a love letter, he immediately reports it to the factory boss instead of simply ignoring it. This paranoid action (he worries about his own job) results in her suspension and ultimately leads to her suicide. When housemaid Myong-ja enters the home, resplendent in her off-the-shoulder tight sweater and girlish pigtails, her first action is to chase and kill a rat in the kitchen -- a clear indicator of the nightmare to come. The two children are suspicious of her from the get go, and they believe they will suffer the same fate as the rat. Jealous of what she perceives to be a perfect family, Myong-ja quickly sets out to seduce Tong-sik. Returning home from the student's funeral racked with guilt (and with his wife and children away) he is powerless against Myong-ja's sexual advances. (He rejected similar advances made by a student just days earlier.) From this point forward, the film takes a radical turn from melodrama to disturbing psychological thriller. Myong-ja, pregnant by Tong-sik, suddenly finds herself in a position of power over the entire family (even insisting that Tong-sik sleeps in her bed). Losing the job, the house, and the things they've worked hard for is too great a risk for Tong-sik and his wife, and the unimaginable horrors they are forced to endure can be viewed as punishment for their desire of material pleasures. Ironically, those very same material items that become instruments of torment. The family piano that once filled the house with music becomes, thanks to Myong-ja's incessant key pounding, an ominous atonal reminder of her presence. Even the house itself plays a part in their downfall -- a staircase in involved in the death of more than one individual. In fact, the final third of the film takes place solely in the house - a spacious luxury now turned into a claustrophobic trap. The world Kim Ki-young creates in the film is almost eerily devoid of men. The factory where Ton-sik teaches has only female workers (or so it seems), and other than a brief scene at a bar, he has virtually no interaction with men. Of the two children, it is the son who becomes Myong-ja's victim, not the daughter, who, interestingly enough is at a physical disadvantage -- she is handicapped, and from early on in the film the staircase is shown as a tremendous obstacle for her. (Which made Filmbrain wonder why the family would consciously move into a house that is barely navigable for their daughter?) One could easily delve into a lengthy Freudian reading of the film (fear of a woman's sexual power, for example), but Filmbrain is not about to attempt that at this time. The Housemaid was released in 1960, the same year as Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Both films are without a doubt groundbreaking in their testing and pushing the limits of the psychological horror film, though The Housemaid contains scenes that would have been impossible for Hitchcock (or any other director) to include in an American film made at that time. Though The Housemaid can ultimately be viewed as a precautionary moral tale, there's no denying the subtext of social and sexual politics running through the film. Still shocking by today's standards (and no less powerful), the film deserves a wider distribution. Sadly, the film is unavailable on DVD. To be continued. Next time: The existentialist despair of Aimless Bullet. [Errata: A Korean Cinema expert (and friend) alerted Filmbrain that he was incorrect in referring to the housemaid as Myong-ja. Myong-ja was actually the name of the student who kills herself. According to him, the housemaid is never given a name and "some critics interpret this anonymity as a symbol of middle class hatred towards the lower class." Very interesting. Filmbrain apologizes for the error.]

Comments

[Adam]

Filmbrain,

Thanks for giving this wonderful film greater exposure. Hopefully you will add to the incentive for someone to get this damn film out on DVD.

[uw]

i was just going to ask if Aimelss Bullett available on DVD.

Does anyone have any info on a possible DVD release?

[Adam]

uw,

thankfully, at least AIMLESS BULLET is out on DVD - http://www.yeondvd.com/classic.html#obaltan

[nkw88]

Actually, Myong-Ja is the student who sent the
love letter and later she went back to her
country and died.
No body knows the name of the housemaid.
Some critics interpret this anonymity as a symbol
of middle class's despise to lower class.

[FIlmbrain]

Oh man -- how embarrassing! I took notes during the film -- so many in fact that I had trouble deciphering them all. (It's not easy for me to write in the dark.)

I wasn't sure about the name, but I confirmed my suspicion in Kyung Hyun Kim's book "The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema", where he too refers to the housemaid as Myong-ja.

I'll amend the post later -- thank you for pointing it out.

[Michael]

Even though I have not seen The Housemaid, this is a very perceptive review, and desperately makes me want to see it. Dang - no DVD!

[Domai]

Thanks for giving this wonderful film greater exposure. Hopefully you will add to the incentive for someone to get this damn film out on DVD.