Pride Month 2020: The Handmaiden (6/20/2020)

Another personal favorite of mine, The Handmaiden is also by far the strangest film that will show up in this series this year. Park Chan-wook is one of the boldest and most stylistically daring filmmakers out there, and his transportation of Sarah Water's acclaimed novel Fingersmith into Japanese-occupied Korea results in a truly bizzare, inventive and complex film.

The setup is simple; a Korean con man enlists the help of a young thief (Sookee) and directs her to pose as a wealthy Japanese noble's (Hideko) handmaiden. She will work to push her into falling in love with him, who is posing as a wealthy count doing business with her uncle. Once she has fallen in love, the two will elope, and the false count will have Hideko committed and take her inheritance for himself. Complications eventually arise, however, as Sookee and Hideko fall in love.

This sets the stage for a remarkably complicated and twisting narrative. Told in three parts, featuring different perspectives on the events that occur, The Handmaiden is, on its surface level, a story of intrigue, backstabbing, trickery and freedom. I remember upon my first viewing that I was intoxicated by the sheer brilliance of the story as a crime thriller alone, moving from twist to twist with a grace that would make other filmmakers jealous, and enjoying the developing central relationship between Sookee and Hideko.

This time around, I was able to sink into the deeper themes and complexities of the film. Beforehand, I thought of the film as a story about sexuality and the power it has, both as a force of oppression and a force of liberation. I still think that, but of course there is more to the story. The Handmaiden is a story of oppression and liberation, a deconstruction of the depravity of the male gaze, and a story of two women finding strength in each other to rise from objects used by men to two independent women relying on each other.

In most cases, lesbian stories directed by men end up being fetishistic and demeaning (see: 2013's Blue is the Warmest Color). Park Chan-wook isn't most directors though; with his signature style of over the top filmmaking, he almost satirizes the male gaze that seems to pervade the film, showing us that this isn't real, this is harmful. The men are untrustworthy perverts, and women to them are nothing but playthings. Even when the two women have sex with each other, they are still to some degree caught up in the games of men - an unexpected development to be sure, but one that still exists within their game, as even in the longest and most graphic scene in the film is filled with campy dialogue alluding to "what the Count will do to you." Hideko is just another part of a perverted old man's sexual collection, one he intends to marry one day, and Sookee is but a pawn for the false count, something to be disposed of when all is said and done.

There is a crucial element to the sex scenes of the film that allow them to transcend their male gaze trappings; the bond between the two women. Even in the earlier scenes, which are more voyeuristic, more overdone in a way that almost resembles a porno, there's something happening beneath the surface. These two women have existed in a world where women are playthings; where horrifically violent pornography twist men's desires into something violent and despicable, and where sexuality is a tool used against them. But here, they begin to take that sexuality back with each other, at first using the vocabulary that they know, but gradually beginning to form a legitimate, humanizing bond that allows them to regain autonomy over their bodies and their hearts. By the time we get to the final sex scene, we are cast out from their inner thoughts entirely; though we see them engaging in some rather kinky acts, there's no dialogue to speak of; only two women who are simply happy to be with each other, and be free. Eventually, the camera leaves them alone entirely, and the movie ends.

The result is a strange balance between Chan-wook's absurdism, male voyeurism, and feminist subtext. There are many who still consider this film as an exploitative product of the male gaze despite its attempts to subvert it, and I can't fault them for reaching that conclusion. Surely, the film lingers quite a long time on its erotic scenes, many of them which feel quite staged and overwrought, and not like a natural culmination of the love between two women. At the same time, however, the focus is not on the domination of one's body and spirit, as is the case with the fantasies of the male characters, but rather on the bond between the two women. Take the second major sex scene, in which there is plenty of flesh to be scene and campy dialogue to be had, but the most striking part is actually a scene where the two women grasp each others hands and stare into each others eyes, and you can see the love and trust that is building between them.

I don't think it's possible to entirely, perfectly transcend the male gaze in this manner, but I think The Handmaiden does about the best job that it could have, and delivers an engaging, wonderfully original experience at the same time. It represents the intersection of queer and feminist film, and the two compliment each other perfectly. It's a heavy film and its certainly not for everyone, but it remains a milestone of 2010's foreign filmmaking - and, in my opinion, Park Chan-wook's best.