The Pollen of Flowers
Series sponsored by
Korean Cinema’s Celluloid Fever: The 1970s
May 15 - 26
Long marginalized and now reclaimed as a landmark of Korean queer cinema, Ha Gil-jong’s debut feature traps a powerful businessman, his mistress, and his young male secretary in a slow-burn game of seduction, domination, and betrayal.
Welcome to a rich man’s villa, where everyone is gorgeous, bored, and headed for disaster. With influences ranging from Kim Ki-young to Pasolini, Ha Gil-jong’s debut feature blooms into a transgressive chamber piece, trapping a powerful businessman, his mistress, and his young male secretary (Ha’s brother Hah Myung-joong) in a slow-burn game of seduction, domination, and betrayal. The camera glides, the décor is lush, and the film’s languid surfaces quietly smuggle in a subversive treatment of sexuality and class, all set to a drifting, psychedelic score by rock legend Shin Joong-hyun. Ha refuses to crown simple victims or villains, mirroring a society where power circulates through bodies as much as institutions. Long marginalized and now reclaimed as a landmark of Korean queer cinema, The Pollen of Flowers also plays as a coolly furious allegory of Park Chung-hee–era power and complicity. Digitally mastered in 2013 under the supervision of the Korean Film Archive.
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