The Housemaid – Hanyo (2010)

Directed by: Im Sang-soo | 107 minutes | thriller | Actors: Jeon Do-yeon, Lee Jeong-jae, Ahn Seo-hyeon, Seo Woo, Yoon Yeo-jeong

Eun-Yi (Jeon Do-yeon) is divorced and has a shabby job as a dishwasher. She lives with her friend in a tiny and shabby apartment, they sleep in the same bed. Their lives consist of hard work with little prospect of better times. Unexpectedly, Eun-Yi gets a great chance to escape her predicament. She is allowed to work as a maid for a very wealthy family. The elderly housekeeper Mrs. Cho (Yoon Yeo-jeong) hires her and teaches her all about the social relations that prevail there. In the world of her new employer, a completely different morals applies than Eun-Yi is used to. The extreme wealth of her boss leads to the more than lavishly opulent furnishing of an enormous villa. The family appears civilized and well-mannered and they are fashionably dressed. They treat their domestic servants benevolently but at the same time make them feel penetratingly that they are a sham in their eyes. However, the wages and perks that the domestic workers receive compensate much for everything and allow them to suppress their frustrations.

Hoon (Lee Jeong-jae), the master of the house, is a so-called ‘little emperor’. He comes from a wealthy family and is used to getting everything he desires from an early age. His will is law, he only has to nod (without hesitation) and everyone cuts and bends and conforms. Hoon’s wife Hae Ra (Seo Woo) and his mother-in-law acquiesce to this situation because he provides them with status and wealth, his whims are the price they pay for it. Hoon’s wife is pregnant with twins, she will soon give birth. Eun-Yi gets on very well with their daughter Nami (Ahn Seo-hyeon) and the relationship with her employer Hae Ra is good. However, complications soon follow: the master of the house soon makes it clear that he wants to have a sexual relationship with Eun-Yi. When he visits her at night, she accepts his advances without hesitation and a secret relationship develops. Unhampered by any moral objections to his pregnant wife, Eun-Yi enjoys an affair with her powerful boss. According to her, this can remain without consequences.

However, their relationship is not hidden from the housekeeper, Mrs. Cho. She doesn’t miss anything that happens in the house. Eun-Yi becomes pregnant, but doesn’t know it himself at the time. The housekeeper, on the other hand, sees the signs of pregnancy and realizes that the situation is life-threatening for the social relationships in the family. She informs the mother of the wife. When mother-in-law wants to end this relationship at all costs, the developments lead to an increasingly out of control explosive situation. The situation is becoming unmanageable and the consequences are dramatic for everyone… Director Im Sang-soo packs in his film the necessary social criticism of the Korean relations between rich and poor. However, the storyline of the film is very meager and in terms of data it is not inferior to the content of one of the many novels from the Bouquet series. The story contains the necessary clichés with a rich employer and the poor and somewhat naive maid and the angry mother-in-law who is making a fire. At the end, the director pulls out all the stops (or does he even go over the top?) to achieve the necessary dramatic (but just as surreal as theatrical) effects.

The characters of the various characters are little explored. ‘The Housemaid’ is especially beautiful and exuberant in its visual language and shows that there are few moral restrictions when people want to protect their own interests. The bone-thin content of the story and the sometimes unbelievable situations are visually compensated by ‘beautiful filmmaking’ of the first order. The camera spoils the eyes and glides observing all kinds of details of the magnificently furnished house. The music definitely fits the atmosphere that the film evokes. The contrived gestures and the way in which those involved constantly watch and spy on each other in the house with long menacing glances that come across as kitschy noble pulp like episodes of “GTST” are certainly disturbing. ‘The Housemaid’ is a somewhat less successful gift in extremely luxurious gift packaging and therefore beautiful but empty at the same time.