The Acoustic Mirror and Subversive Visual Strategies in Park Chan Wook’s The Handmaiden

Abstract

This essay analyzes the narrative and visual tools that the Korean director, Park Chan-Wook deploys in his film that aim to dismantle this hegemonic gaze and its associated discourse by using Lacan’s visual theory, Laura Mulvey’s concept of visual pleasure and Kaja Silverman’s approach of voice as element of masculine domination. On the other hand, it will analyze how the female subject is able to challenge the traditional phonic space in which they have been limited to a mere body element that anchors them to a passive positioning, resisting the normative relationship between female voice / body through which the woman is excluded from the ability to narrate her own story.

Keywords

• gaze
• voice
• Park Chan-Wook
• The Handmaiden
• Korean cinema
• body