I am an idiot!
I am a complete idiot for thinking for even a second that I was ready for this movie! I was a fool to think that just because there are no English subs, I would be able to handle The Handmaiden because since I would not understand a thing, I would be safe from all the extreme emotional bombs.
I couldn’t!
Last time I stopped at around the 40min mark. That was two days ago! Guess how much progress I have made since then?
4 minutes! 4 FRIKKIN MINUTES!!!!
And yes, I have watched something every day since then. The thing is that on every watch I begin from the very start of the movie once again. Despite that I can’t help pausing every damn second to catch the emotions and all the nuances of every scene. Catching what makes Sook-hee and Hideko tick. What attracts them to each other. How their feelings develop with every scene and trying to decipher how much time has passed!
Finally I made it to where I had left off but I was not ready! I know what is coming, I knew, everyone has spoiled me already, not that I mind, but despite knowing, I am scared for my life to go beyond this point!
Just those four precious minutes more to bring me to the 45min mark, have taken me hours to finally stop looping and pausing the damn movie just to soak in what is happening! The emotions on the display are out of this world! I still can’t believe I am looking at Kim Min-hee, playing Maud, in an adaptation of Fingersmith – my favourite book ever!
Kim Tae-ri too – Okay, this is just un-believable! There is no way that she is not an actress but rather a journalist student! There is no way The Handmaiden is her first film/major project in acting!
No way!
That young woman wore her emotions in her eyes so perfectly I finally understood the meaning – Eyes are the windows to one’s soul!
What perfect casting! Not just the casting, everything else about The Handmaiden is simply perfection! I am sorry BBC adaptation, even you original source material Fingersmith, but you both lose to this movie in terms of yuri! The only thing the book has over the movie is story structure/pacing/plot etc but it is a book which has the luxury of time and thus able to accomplish the mentioned.
For a movie to be able to do what The Handmaiden did – that is pure magic!
So, after today I am faced with the first sex scene challenge! It has been real difficult getting over just the kissing scene in these four minutes to today, how the hell am I going to survive the next scene?!
I guess it’s time to start writing my will. then time to go to the church and pray for enlightenment just in case I find myself at the gates of judgement!
Pray for me dearest Readers…
百合 Fever 