In another country
Park Chan-wook, Bong Joon-ho, Lee Chang-dong, Im Sang-soo, E J-yong and Hong Sang-soo – that pretty much concludes the big name Korean directors, right? (Oh God, I’ll be honest, these names all look and sound the same to me… I can never remember Korean or Chinese names.) I have seen at least movie by all of these, and slowly, Hong Sang-soo is moving up the ranks. I only saw “The day he arrives” before and only vaguely heard that he has a very specific style, and all of his stories are essentially the same. Now that I have a second movie to compare it to, one with La Huppert on top of that, I would say that this is definitely true.
Hong Sang-soo’s movies are about a main character (often a creative person) who meets people within a specific setting, and then the whole thing happens again but under different circumstances. Scenes repeat but under a different context and while some lines repeat the outcome or other aspects are different, and the whole thing is weaved into a strange pattern of interestingness. It’s always a love story, or at least love or jealousy are one topic amongst others. In this case, we have Isabelle Huppert who is being courted by a slightly dumb but cute and attractive man whose English is so broken they barely can have a proper conversation. She is someone else in every case – a movie director in the first, a rich housewife in the second and a divorcee in the third – and you can tell by her clothing in which setting you are right now (though technically they just follow each other in the film). I think I liked the first part the best, followed by the third, followed by the second (in which La Huppert wore an awesome red dress but otherwise the part was a little boring).
In any case, I like Hong Sang-soo’s writing. I enjoy the little repetitions of scenes, the rather airheaded characters and the way he shoots conversations. If “Night and Day” is anything remotely like “The day he arrives” and “In another country”, I am sure I would love it. I read a few reviews saying they were bored of Hong Sang-soo’s style, but I have to admit that I love it when I get more of the same, if the same means something I enjoy. Just recently, I talked to Pixelmatsch about bands we used to love, and I compared Deftones to Hong Sang-soo – very special, very unique and I don’t mind if they stay the same forever.