A 1960 South Korean film not unlike last year's Oscar Best Picture Parasite about the have's & have not's living in the same abode. A pianist, his wife & their 2 children live together happily. The wife is pregnant w/another child on the way so the pianist decides to become a piano teacher at a local factory where all the students are female. One day, at the behest of a pushy friend, one student boldly leaves a note declaring her love for the teacher who is so taken aback he reports her to her supervisor who promptly, as per the company's regs, lets her go. The pushy friend was testing the waters all along (she used her friend as a proxy) since she taking lessons w/the teacher from his home but as the pregnancy wears on, she suggests someone to come over to help (the wife insists they need a maid). The new girl soon settles into the new environment but things turn when she witnesses the student throw herself at the teacher (who he re-approaches) who quickly in turn banishes her from his home. The maid soon steps up to the plate, as it were, & the beginning of the end commences as an unhealthy obsession becomes a relationship marked by threatened doses of poison, unwanted pregnancies & shock zooms making this revered classic not for all tastes since at one point the downstairs soon controls the upstairs & the stoic victimization settles in. The shock ending doesn't help matters much by trying to have the outcome favor all rather than the uncomfortable parable between the privileged & those who serve them which the story-line initially proposed. There is a 2010 film of the same name which I saw the trailer for but whether it's a remake or not remains to be seen, I'll keep you posted.
Review of The Housemaid
