I Would Like to See It: The Housemaid (2010) (Patreon)

Its final moments are marred by cheesy special effects, its characterization of its protagonist wavers somewhat in the second and third acts, and its typically excellent melodrama sometimes falls a trifle flat, but Im Sang-soo’s 2010 remake of the classic erotic thriller The Housemaid inarguably fucks. Its sex scenes are some of the hottest in recent film, thrillingly raunchy and at once dehumanizing and deeply personal. In one sequence the camera lingers in the shrinking and growing gap between Hoon’s (Lee Jung-jae) chest and Eun-yi’s (Jeon Do-yeon) back as they fuck and discuss, panting, where on Eun-yi’s body Hoon should come. Muscles flex and relax. Skin glistens with sweat. The motion of the lovers’ bodies is almost abstracted at such short remove, their voices sublimated into planes of shifting flesh, their intimacy mechanical. Immediate.

Clever framing is among the film’s foremost pleasures, from the above shot of Eun-yi huddled away from her employers’ private family oasis to a notable moment in which Hoon stands in the hallway staring at both Eun-yi, on her knees to clean a bathtub, and his wife Hae-ra (Seo Woo) at her vanity in an adjacent room, inspecting them as one might look over candies in a sampler. Sang-soo often breaks his shots into such readily scannable elements, sketching the relationships between characters with lively visual clarity. In one scene Eun-yi makes suggestive eye contact with Hoon while literally pushing and pulling Hae-ra’s pregnant body through a natal yoga routine, emphasizing both her subservience to the family and her status as a proxy for Hae-ra’s inconveniently unavailable sexuality. She thinks she’s flirting, but you can’t flirt with someone who considers you fuckable furniture.

The emotional dynamics of Hoon’s household are as compelling as Sang-soo’s visuals, a handful of ruthless, naive, and innocent women constantly reacting to the ultra-wealthy playboy’s random whims as he alternately ignores and pounces on them, a cat toying with mice. Hoon is off-screen for most of the film’s running time, but his presence is inescapable. He is the subject of every conversation, the motivating force behind every action; even the house is a kind of extension of his body, a series of rooms to hold his toys until he wants to play with them. Mi-hee (Park Ji-young), Hae-ra’s vicious and youthful mother, even encourages her daughter to permit Hoon’s infidelities without too much of a fuss, transparently afraid of losing her own meal ticket if Hae-ra’s marriage collapses. The rich, the film suggests, are incapable of real connection, only able to covet what they already have and lash out at anyone who comes too close to it.