Online Class: A ZOOM invitation link will be sent one day before each class session begins.
Director Lee Chang-dong is a master of carefully filmed works rich with human empathy. In Secret Sunshine (2007), a recently-widowed piano teacher relocates to a provincial town for a fresh start. When tragedy strikes, she moves from depression to a rage approaching madness. The efforts of a cheerful would-be suitor and a cult-like religious group only seem to make matters worse. In Poetry (2011), the camera follows a gracefully refined woman in her 60s who struggles to raise a sullen teen-aged grandson. When she learns she is in the early stages of Alzheimer's, she decides to enroll in a poetry class. The instructor's words of advice, "learn to look," put her in closer contact with her feelings but heighten the pain of events that follow. These movies are in Korean with English subtitles. They are unrated but have some adult content.
John Stewart is a retired software developer with degrees in biology from the University of Michigan. He is not a movie maven, but he enjoys movies with a foreign touch and believes these two will appeal to Elderwise cinema lovers.