‘Hong Sang-soo’-helaften
Tale of Cinema (2005) + The Novelist’s Film (2022) + In Our Day (2023)
Søndag 28. april 2024 - kl. 17:00
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Tale of Cinema (2005) - Info:
Originaltittel: 극장전
Visningsformat: DCP
Regissør: Hong Sang-soo
Manusforfatter: Hong Sang-soo
Skuespillere: Kim Sang-kyung, Uhm Ji-won, Lee Ki-woo
Produksjonsland: Sør-Korea
Språk: Koreansk
Undertekst: Engelsk
Lengde: 1 time 29 minutter
The Novelist’s Film (2022) - Info:
Originaltittel: 소설가의 영화
Visningsformat: DCP
Regissør: Hong Sang-soo
Manusforfatter: Hong Sang-soo
Skuespillere: Kim Min-hee, Lee Hye-young, Seo Young-hwa
Produksjonsland: Sør-Korea
Språk: Koreansk
Undertekst: Engelsk
Lengde: 1 time 32 minutter
In Our Day (2023) - Info:
Originaltittel: 우리의 하루
Visningsformat: DCP
Regissør: Hong Sang-soo
Manusforfatter: Hong Sang-soo
Skuespillere: Kim Min-hee, Ki Joo-bong, Song Sun-mi
Produksjonsland: Sør-Korea
Språk: Koreansk
Undertekst: Engelsk
Lengde: 1 time 23 minutter
Nor:
Hong Sang-soo har vært en gjenganger på den internasjonale festivalscenen i flere tiår, uten å få et gjennombrudd i Norge. Siden debuten i 1996 har han regissert 30 filmer, hvorav 25 kommer fra hans eget produksjonsselskap, startet i 2005. Filmene han regisserte før 2005 er alle gode, men lanseringen av Tale of Cinema kan sees som et skifte i hans karriere der han virkelig fant sin stemme, produksjonsmetode, og utholdenhet.
Når Hong lanserer tre filmer på tre ulike filmfestivaler på ett år (2017), skyldes det den nevnte produksjonsmetoden. Han skriver ikke tradisjonelle manus, men skriver enkeltscener før solen står opp og filmer dem i løpet av dagen med sine faste og kjære skuespillere og assistenter. Hong blir tidvis sammenlignet med Eric Rohmer, og redusert til «han lager den samme filmen hvert år,» men Hongs bruk av repetisjon, todelte- og speilvendte narrativ "gir en klar struktur til [hans oeuvre]," som Dennis Lim uttrykker det i boken Tale of Cinema (2022). Det er gjennom denne strukturen at disse tre filmene spiller fint på hverandre, og som Lim har sagt: «å se én film fra Hong alene fungerer dårlig, de er i konstant dialog med hverandre.» Eller på godt norsk, «det skal godt gjøres å spise bare én.» Ingen bruker alkohol (soju) på samme måte som Hong (skuespillere er ofte beruset på settet), og det er heller ingen som filmer katter med like mye kjærlighet.
Eng:
Hong Sang-soo has been a main staple on the film festival scene for decades, yet he has never had a breakthrough in Norway. Since his debut in 1996, he has directed 30 features, 25 of which have come from his own production company which he started in 2005- While the films he directed before 2005 are excellent in their own right, the release of Tale of Cinema can be seen as a turning point where he truly found his voice, mode of production, and prolific output.
When Hong is able to release three films at three festivals in one year (2017), it is because of said mode of production. He doesn’t write traditional scripts, but rather writes scenes before sunrise, which he then shoots throughout the day with his ensemble of familiar actors and assistants. While sometimes reductively compared to Eric Rohmer (“he makes the same film every year”), Hong’s use of repetition, bifurcated and mirrored narratives “provides a clear structure,” as Dennis Lim puts it in his excellent book Tale of Cinema (2022). It is through this structure that these three films play off one another in sharp and insightful ways, never giving way to pretension, but rather a warm embrace. Nobody uses alcohol (Soju) in the same way as Hong (actors are often inebriated on set), nor does anyone use the camera as a direct tool of expression of love for cats either.
Tale of Cinema (2005)
When film critic and artistic director of the New York Film Festival, Dennis Lim, published his book about Hong Sang-soo in 2022, he chose Tale of Cinema as his entry point to discuss his entire career.* It is a film that can be said to contain most of Hong’s artistic sensibilities, thematic and narrative preoccupations, and stylistic inclinations. It is also an important reference point to understand Hong’s method, which he has developed over the course of the almost two decades since.
This is one of the main reasons we chose it to open this Day of Hong. Bifurcated narratives and structures are core tenets within Hong’s filmography, and Tale of Cinema perhaps more than any other early work showcases this with a clear and succinct narrative. As the film begins, we are introduced to Sangwon (Lee Ki-woo), a suicidal student who wanders aimlessly in the city streets to avoid spending time with his brother. Here he runs into an ex-girlfriend, Youngsil (Uhm Ji-won), and the two decide to spend the night together. Both are miserable, and their reunion seems to rush towards a tragic conclusion. When the film cuts away from this story, we see a woman played by Uhm Ji-won leave an auditorium. She is followed by another man, played by Kim Sang-kyung (Memories of Murder from 2003), who seems to recognize her. He is a filmmaker stuck in a rut, and he manages to involve himself in the woman’s life and the company she keeps, seemingly looking for inspiration and a connection that may not exist.
Tale of Cinema is simultaneously a celebration and love letter to cinema-going and the ways in which we make sense of our experiences when we leave the dark room for our real world. As in almost all of Hong’s films, the men are narcissistic and pitiful, almost always laughable in their naïve belief in their own centrality in the spaces they occupy. It is perhaps one of Hong’s most depressive films, a stark contrast to most of his recent work, but nonetheless a delight.
*Fun fact: When Dennis Lim first began to write his book, Hong had released 22 films. By the time Dennis Lim finished the book, Hong had released 28 films.
In Our Day (2023)
Yet again Hong plays around with two stories within one film. One story follows a retired or tired poet who struggled or struggles with an addiction to alcohol when he is visited by a young aspiring artist who wants to pry his brain for wisdom and insight. A woman joins them with a camera and some food and non-alcoholic beer for the old poet: grateful for the taste he so misses. The young artist, a true Hong male, feels slighted by the woman’s sudden appearance, and runs out to buy real alcohol for the old man. Drunken conversations ensue. In the other story, an actress is at home with her friend and her cat. The actress is played by Kim Min-hee (The Handmaiden), who came into Hong’s universe in 2017 with On the Beach at Night Alone and infused his work with more warmth and tenderness than before. As in the first story, a sudden visitor appears at their door.
Where Tale of Cinema’s two stories have clear and distinct connections to one another, it is less so in In Our Day. Structurally it seems to exist in an in-between space of early and late Hong: whereas his earlier work was direct and upfront in their structural playfulness (title cards, numbered tiles, etc) his more recent work is more elliptical and inconspicuous in this regard. In Our Day’s two stories are presented with title cards, and the film hops between them at regular intervals, yet never feels determined by them.
The stories have no clear linkage, nor do they ever intertwine, but there are synchronicities that emerge: both storylines feature alcohol consumption; both feature scenes of characters relishing over Ramyun noodles with hot pepper paste; the actress owns a beautiful cat, the old poet misses his. Significantly, there is of course the mirroring of mentor and mentee within the arts, and disillusionment vs optimism.
In Our Day is in a sense an antidote to the sadness inherent in Tale of Cinema, and while it still tackles heavy subject matters, it clearly shows how Hong has matured over the years, more interested in the beauty inherent in daily mundanities than the monotony.
The Novelist’s Film (2022)
The Novelist’s Film is on first look the slightest and most simple of the three films in today’s program. Its structural play is not as overt as in Tale of Cinema and In Our Day, and the narrative is somehow even more sparse. A woman, the titular novelist, says it best in the film: “the story’s not that important.” We follow her as she visits a younger colleague who runs a small bookstore. They talk and catch up. The novelist later climbs a tower where she meets a filmmaker and his wife. They talk and reflect. Then they take a walk in the park, where they run into an actress (again, Kim Min-hee), who the novelist asks to help her make a film. They all drink and eat a lot, of course.
For all the complaints about repetition and similarities in Hong’s filmography, The Novelist’s Film is a remedy. Its apparent simplicity gives way to the power of culmination. Scenes, gestures, moments, persons, ideas, feelings, and more, that have been explored and re-explored throughout Hong’s 26 earlier films all arrive at an emotional height here, an emotional climax. While the use of repetition has always been a pleasure unto itself for his admirers—for all their complexity in examining and questioning conventions and trends in narrative structures and cinematic storytelling—it is through this film that Hong seems to arrive at a declaration. No longer can it be reduced to a film about ridiculous men, fragile egos, dysfunctional relationships (familial or romantic), because this is a film about nothing and everything at once.
Despite the many ways in which Hong’s films invite the viewer to read them in an autobiographical light, it’s more often than not a dead end: a way to close off their interpretative richness in favor of perceived biographical correlations. Yet, there are exceptions to the rule. It is hard not to see in water (2023), shot entirely out of focus, as Hong grappling with his own failing eyesight. It would be to take away from the experience to specify how The Novelist’s Film can be seen in a similar light, but the way it moves effortlessly through all of Hong’s work is deeply meaningful. While it is impossible to screen all 26 films that preceded it, to achieve its full culminating effect, it is a film that works either way. When the film ends, another one begins; or when the film ends, Hong says hello.
Vises i "Tivoli" på Det Akademiske Kvarter (Olav Kyrres Gate 49)