Poetry

Poetry

Year: 2011

Runtime: 139 min

Language: Korean

Director: Chang-dong Lee

Drama

An elderly woman grapples with the onset of Alzheimer's disease while her family faces a serious crisis. Her teenage grandson, for whom she is responsible, becomes embroiled in a troubling situation when he is accused, along with a group of boys, of contributing to the suicide of a classmate. The film explores themes of family, responsibility, and the devastating impact of loss and accusation.

Melancholic
Ambiguous ending
Emotionally heavy
Medium intensity
Slow pacing
Moderate complexity

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Timeline & Setting – Poetry (2011)

Explore the full timeline and setting of Poetry (2011). Follow every major event in chronological order and see how the environment shapes the story, characters, and dramatic tension.

Time period

2010s

Set in contemporary South Korea, the events occur in the late 2000s to early 2010s. The period reflects modern urban life, welfare constraints, and a school environment where misconduct and cover-ups test community conscience. The timeframe grounds the story in a society negotiating memory, accountability, and the fragility of aging.

Location

South Korea, Busan, Seoul

The film unfolds across contemporary South Korea, moving between urban neighborhoods and rural areas. Key locations include a riverbank and a bridge tied to Agnes's tragedy, a local community center where Mi-ja attends a poetry class, and Mi-ja's daily routine caring for an elderly man on welfare. The setting highlights economic disparity, family duty, and the tension between private pain and public perception.

🌆 Urban life 💰 Poverty 👵 Aging 🗺️ Rural-urban divide

Last Updated: October 04, 2025 at 08:03

Main Characters – Poetry (2011)

Meet the key characters of Poetry (2011), with detailed profiles, motivations, and roles in the plot. Understand their emotional journeys and what they reveal about the film’s deeper themes.

Yang Mi-ja (Yoon Jeong-hee)

A 66-year-old grandmother on government welfare who cares for an ill elderly man and an unruly 16-year-old grandson. She discovers poetry and joins a local class, using writing to observe the world around her. Living under strain, she wrestles with memory loss and difficult moral choices as she confronts the consequences of others’ actions.

👵 Grandmother 🧠 Aging 💸 Poverty 📝 Poetry

Jong-wook (Lee David)

Mi-ja's 16-year-old grandson, who spends late nights out with a group of boys and shows a troubling disregard for boundaries. He ignores Mi-ja’s questions and becomes a central figure in a network of abuse that knows no easy answers. His actions propel the film's tension between family obligation and collective guilt.

👦 Teen 🧭 Peer pressure 🧳 Family trouble

Agnes

A 16-year-old girl whose rape by several boys and subsequent suicide become the focal tragedy. Her diary surfaces, revealing the violence that the school and parents attempt to suppress. Agnes's memory haunts Mi-ja and drives the moral questions at the story's heart.

💔 Victim 🗒️ Diary 🧭 Tragedy

Policeman (Brash Poet)

A frequent, bluntly humorous poet who is also a police officer newly reassigned from Seoul after exposing corruption. His presence at the poetry readings contrasts beauty with crude jokes, complicating Mi-ja’s trust in the room’s safety and sincerity.

👮‍♂️ Police 🗨️ Humor 🧭 Complexity

Poetry Teacher

Mi-ja's poetry instructor who encourages her to write and reflect on the world around her. The teacher guides the class’s exploration of memory, beauty, and pain, providing a frame for Mi-ja’s evolving inner life.

👩‍🏫 Teacher 📝 Poetry 🌟 Mentor

Elderly Man (Stroke Victim)

The man Mi-ja cares for who has had a stroke. He makes a desperate sexual advance, and Mi-ja’s decision to continue the arrangement reveals the precarious balance between survival, consent, and personal boundaries within caretaking relationships.

🧓 Elderly 💬 Boundaries 💰 Money matters

Agnes's Mother

A poor farming widow who receives the settlement offer for Agnes's death. She becomes a focal point of the negotiation between the families and the school, embodying the vulnerable party in a system pressuring quiet resolution.

🧑‍🌾 Farmer 💔 Grief 💰 Settlement

Fathers (Group of Fathers)

The fathers of the five boys who assaulted Agnes push for a settlement to avert scandal. They fear retribution and aim to protect reputations, reflecting a community that values appearance over truth.

👨‍👧‍👦 Fathers ⚖️ Justice 🏛️ Cover-up

Last Updated: October 04, 2025 at 08:03

Major Themes – Poetry (2011)

Explore the central themes of Poetry (2011), from psychological, social, and emotional dimensions to philosophical messages. Understand what the film is really saying beneath the surface.

⚖️ Guilt & Complicity

Mi-ja becomes entangled in the settlement offered to Agnes's mother, a choice driven by poverty and fear of scandal. The fathers, the school, and the broader community push to avoid police investigation, revealing the line between justice and social convenience. The film asks who bears moral responsibility when harm is hidden behind money and silence.

🧠 Memory & Aging

Mi-ja's early-stage Alzheimer's shapes how she perceives and remembers events, complicating truth-telling and accountability. The narrative contrasts her fading memory with Agnes's remembered story through diaries and memorials, creating tension between memory, guilt, and silence. This theme underlines how memory can illuminate or erode justice.

🎨 Art as Refuge

Poetry class and readings become Mi-ja's solace and a means of processing suffering. Writing 'Agnes's Song' anchors the film's ethical struggle and provides a counterpoint to the town's moral evasions. The arts offer a space for honesty, connection, and quiet resistance against cruelty.

Last Updated: October 04, 2025 at 08:03

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Explore Movie Threads

Discover curated groups of movies connected by mood, themes, and story style. Browse collections built around emotion, atmosphere, and narrative focus to easily find films that match what you feel like watching right now.

Melancholy moral decay dramas like Poetry

Character-driven stories of quiet collapse under the weight of responsibility and loss.If you liked the quiet, devastating moral collapse in Poetry, explore other movies like it. These films feature similar slow-burn pacing, heavy emotional weight, and a focus on characters grappling with fading memory, familial responsibility, and profound ethical dilemmas.

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Narrative Summary

Stories in this thread typically follow a protagonist, often elderly or isolated, navigating a personal crisis that exposes a deeper moral failing within themselves or their family. The narrative unfolds slowly, emphasizing the internal emotional landscape over external plot, and often concludes with an ambiguous or bittersweet resolution that underscores the themes of irretrievable loss and the elusiveness of truth.

Why These Movies?

These films are grouped together because they share a specific emotional tone—a pervasive, reflective melancholy—and a narrative focus on the intersection of personal decline and ethical compromise. They are united by their deliberate pacing, heavy emotional weight, and their ability to find profound sadness in quiet, everyday moments of failure and remembrance.

Quiet trauma dramas with a slow pace like Poetry

Films that unpack societal and personal trauma with quiet intensity and moral ambiguity.For viewers seeking films similar to Poetry's handling of trauma and its aftermath. These movies share a slow, deliberate pace and a heavy emotional focus on the consequences of violence and the struggle for expression, often leaving moral questions unresolved.

somberquietoppressivehauntingmorally complexdevastatingthought-provokingvulnerable

Narrative Summary

The narrative pattern involves a central, often suppressed, traumatic event that gradually comes to light. The story is less about the event itself and more about its ripple effects on a community or family, focusing on denial, complicity, and the immense difficulty of articulating pain. The journey is internal and psychological, favoring emotional realism over dramatic climaxes.

Why These Movies?

These films are linked by their shared commitment to exploring trauma with restraint and emotional depth. They possess a similar vibe: a slow-burn pace that creates a sense of dread and sadness, a tone that is somber and reflective rather than explosive, and a thematic preoccupation with the moral compromises people make to survive unbearable truths.

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Poetry Summary

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