The Housemaid (Hanyeo )

The Housemaid regularly takes up the top places in rankings of the best Korean films of all times. The story of a woman from lower class who slowly pulls apart a seemingly harmonious household of a bourgeois family, was adapted several times but the original version from 1960 still resonates the most. At first glance a poignant melodrama, it eventually transforms into an urgent social critique of class difference and patriarchy. The director and scriptwriter Kim Ki-young fully uses the space of the two-story house which transforms into a claustrophobic labyrinth hosting a drama full of manipulation, desire and fear. Terror seeps into the mise-en-scene and tension grows with every shot. The Housemaid is a masterful example of sophistication of Korean genre films of the 1960s and simultaneously a film the themes and form of which still resonate today, after more than 60 years. (Dan Krátký)