Cinema
Spinning the Tales of Cruelty Towards Women
여인잔혹사 물레야 물레야
Yi Du-yong · 1984
Synopsis
In the fifteenth century, Gil-rye, the daughter of a respectable but poor family, is married to the dead son of a powerful dignitary and finds herself a widow from her wedding. Her father-in-law, out of compassion, helps her to flee. A servant in the house of the minister Choi, then remarried to a minor nobleman, she fails to give the lineage a son, and goes through, one after another, the injustices that the society of her time reserved for women.
Context
The film, produced by HanRim Films from a screenplay by Im Choong, with Won Mi-kyung as Gil-rye and Shin Il-ryong, was released in Korea on 25 February 1984; the Berlinale dates it to 1983, the year of the Grand Bell awards where it was honoured as best film. It was shown at Cannes in 1984 in the Un certain regard section, under the French title Le Rouet, then submitted by Korea for the Oscar for best foreign film, without being nominated. The Korean press reproached it for giving a bad image of the country, and viewers doubted that a single woman could suffer so many injustices.
Who it is for
A historical drama of a hundred minutes, harsh and relentless, on the condition of women under Joseon.
Prizes and reception
Best Film at the Grand Bell Awards and a Cannes selection in 1984; the film divided the Korean press and the audience in Honolulu.
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