홍상수/Hong Sang-soo

I was, and still am to a degree, obsessed with the idea of being cultured. I want to check off as many boxes as I can on the list of "essential things to know" as a cultured person. This both obviously and subtly influences the movies I watch, books I read, and music I listen to.

In the Korean film-world, there seems to be a few big name "auteurs" that you just have to see if you want to be considered cultured. This list generally includes 임권택 (Im Kwon-taek), 박찬욱 (Park Chan-wook), 이창동 (Lee Chang-dong), and 김기덕 (Kim Ki-duk). In middle school, I developed a vague desire to go through these directors' works - to be fluent in the "canon" of modern Korean cinema.

홍상수 (Hong Sang-soo) was of course a name thrown around in whatever forum or blogs discussing the most influential directors, but someone I didn't really notice. He had no big hits like Park's Old Boy or Lee's Oasis, and none of films' synopses seemed compelling enough for me to seek out. I only really took interest after his affair with 김민희 (Kim Min-hee). Kim was a household name since her performance in The Handmaiden, which was one of my favorite films of the year. What captivated me so much about their relationship was their boldness. They professed their love in public, with no hint of shame in their relationship. Even as they were villifiedby the press and public, I could not help but be curious about Hong as a person.

The first film I watched by Hong was 지금은맞고그때는틀리다 (Right Now, Wrong Then). My first impression of the film was how autobiographical it appeared. The male protagonist 정재영 (Jung Jae-young) is an independent film-maker, who meets a young beauty (Kim) on a business trip to rural Korea. The film goes through two iterations of their encounter in parallel universes. Some events occur in both, while some are unique to one version of the story. Couched in the same backdrop, the two versions generate different emotions by virtue of slipped words, chance encounters, and spontaneous emotions. Some critics compare this approach to film-making as reminiscent of Deleuze's Repetition and Difference. I then went on to see a couple more of his films, such as 밤의 해변에서 혼자 (On the Beach at Night Alone), 다른 나라에서 (In a Foreign Country), and Hill of Freedom (자유의 언덕). At this point,

The first thing that stood out to me was the awkward dialogue. This threw me off the first time I've seen his films, but on repeated viewing, I got used to it. There is no small talk in his films. Every word is intentional and communicates some kind of emotion. That's why it seems like so much happens, even though most scenes are simply people talking while walking, eating, or drinking. There is very little drama - even infidelity is rendered flat and uninteresting. The dynamics of his films come not from event, but from the difference in subtlety. His characters are swimming in emotional complexity that they themselves can barely process, and Hong would randomly drop moments of overwhelming causal simplicity in relationships. His protagonist can walk up to a woman and tell her she's beautiful, and they can become lovers by the end of the day. Hong tells a fairy tale so mundane that it appears within grasp - whether it is or not is a central motif in his Repetition.

On the next post, I'll write on 풀잎들 (Grass), his latest contemplation on mortality.