HOTEL BY THE RIVER (Gangbyeon Hotel) B+
South Korea (96
mi) 2018 d: Hong Sang-soo
One of the more prolific directors working today, Hong
Sang-soo has built a career making intimate chamber dramas, where his earlier
films contained unfiltered yet graphic sex scenes of over-inebriated men in bed
with the wrong partners, often regretting their behavior afterwards, while the
real object of their affections remains elusively out of the picture. Bursting onto the scene with an amazing
coherency to his dialogue which is especially self-critical of the boorish
behavior of men, often featuring a professor or film director as a stand-in for
Hong, drinking heavily in restaurant table scenes with his students and
admirers, where his drama is driven by a confessional nature in his works,
becoming amazingly transparent, feeling autobiographical in the highly
personalized nature of the conversations.
As his career progressed, there was less emphasis on sex and more in the
precise means of expressing himself, as writing his own dialogue has always
held the key to understanding his films, absorbed in somber reflections, where
the quality of his actors has elevated over time, becoming exquisite chamber
dramas that question the nature of the artist in a changing world, with an
emphasis on shifting relationships that don’t always end well, where the
critical focus on betrayal, abandonment, loneliness, remorse, and wildly
self-serving ideals lead to a complex portrait of middle-class life in South
Korea, revealed to be a modernized, cosmopolitan world that inherits a capacity
for change, yet characters are stuck in time, stubbornly refusing to grasp the
obvious. More than any other working
director, Hong’s films are a scathing portrait of male narcissism, leaving
damaged characters lingering in a state of paralysis, often self-imposed, yet
they are on the cusp of bridging the future, but something inevitably holds
them back. Hong dissects this modern
dilemma with acute observation, usually writing his scripts on the morning of
the shoot, showing a capacity for brevity and precision, creating a Chekhovian
universe that is unparalleled in modern cinema.
With nearly 25 features under his belt, churning out at least one per
year, his films are a reservoir of personal detail and inspiration, where you
can count on brilliantly choreographed table sequences with plenty of food and
drink, leading to abrupt and seemingly spontaneous drunken outbursts that might
seem obnoxious or cruelly offensive, yet they have a way of clearing the air,
as Hong brings a brutally honest dynamic to all his works, featuring characters
that aren’t particularly likeable, as they’re willing to tell others exactly
what they think, whether they want to hear it or not. This can be startling and humorous in the
same breath, but always makes for compelling theater, as this director has such
a clever style of conveying his messages, often resorting to repetitive looks
of the same events, but viewed differently, keeping viewers off guard, where
well-mannered sophistication delves into the crude realities of our day,
creating poetic films with astonishing reach.
In an unusual twist, the opening credits are spoken aloud,
revealing the precise dates when the movie was shot, between January 29 and
February 14 of 2018. His sixth film with
actress Kim Min-hee (his romantic partner) that began with 2016
Top Ten List #8 Right Now, Wrong Then
(Ji-geum-eun-mat-go-geu-ddae-neun-teul-li-da), this is the first where she
is a secondary character, not the primary focus, yet her presence is unmistakable,
always representing something near and dear to the director. Instead the film opens on the craggy face of
Ko Young-hwan (Ki Joo-bong, working with Hong for the first time, winner of
Best Actor at the Locarno Film Festival), an aging poet staying at a riverside
hotel, with Kim Hyung-ku’s black and white camera asserting itself in this
wintry landscape, one of the few Hong films shot in winter, where the views of
snow on the ground reaching clear across the river are simply breathtaking,
capturing a winter wonderland of unsurpassed beauty, with nature making its
presence felt, even having the final say by the end of the picture. This has a different feel than earlier
pictures, perhaps due to the more open use of handheld cameras, but much of it
must be due to the affable yet gruff nature of Ko, who stands out as a
different kind of authority figure, equally blind and damaged, yet decisively
different, as he seems comfortable in his own skin, able to overlook his
shortcomings and not dwell upon them, displaying a much more positive attitude
than most Hong characters. Receiving a
call from a perspective visitor, he easily avoids revealing his room number,
despite the persistence of the caller, preferring to meet in the café on the
ground floor of the hotel. When he
arrives for coffee, he looks fully dressed for the outdoors, sitting in front
of a floor-to-ceiling window with an amazing view, where he remains in focus,
yet the viewer’s eye moves out the window to the distant shoreline, like a
ghost world barely recognizable in the dim light, or silhouettes engulfed in a
fog. As he drifts off in thought, two
others are sitting at a similar table with an identical view, two brothers,
Kyung-soo (Kwon Hae-hyo) and Byung-soo (Yu Jun-sang), apparently waiting for
their father. This missed connection is
intriguing, as there are no other visible guests at the hotel which is
distinctly notable for just how empty it is.
Curiously, there is one other hotel guest on the same floor as Ko but
down the hall, Sang-hee (Kim Min-hee), seen wrapping her hand with bandages
from an apparent burn injury. Inner
thoughts are revealed for both hotel guests, no one else, allowing an expanded
introspection for each character, connecting them together in some mysterious
fashion. Her invited guest meets her in
her hotel room, Yeon-ju (Song Seon-mi), but not before noticing the car driven
by the two brothers, recognizing something familiar about it. While commiserating over a painful recent break-up,
Yeon-ju is offering her moral support and is there in a comforting role of a
friend, yet the two spend most of the afternoon dozing in the room. When they take a brief walk outside, Hang-see
is surprised by the amount of snowfall, “How could so much come down so
quickly?” Ko has apparently been stood
up by his friend, so he takes a walk outside, introducing himself to the two
young ladies, finding their youthful beauty not only intoxicating but
refreshing, awkwardly repeating this observation several times, where they
eventually make the connection that he’s a published poet. This little interchange repeats a theme from
earlier films where older men always express how beautiful Kim Min-hee is, a
personal obsession of this director that becomes sickening to endure in On
the Beach at Night Alone (Bamui haebyun-eoseo honja) (2017), considering
just how much constant attention is paid to her, feeling more like an
uncontrolled addiction.
Eying his two sons through the window, they quickly
reconnect, though in the interim we’ve learned the older brother still teases
Byung-soo about his name, as it’s so close to the word “Buffoon,” claiming
that’s not accidental, a fact that still bothers him, surprised this practice
is continuing into adulthood, though now the younger sibling is a budding
filmmaker, viewed as a hot commodity.
Their father acknowledges he’s been staying at the hotel for free, as
the owner is one of his admirers who made the offer, so he’s been there a few
weeks, but will have to leave shortly, as he’s grown tired of the man, claiming
he constantly repeats himself (a common criticism of Hong himself!). Because Byung-soo is still single and has a
reluctant view of getting too close to women, believing he has to approach them
cautiously due to previous damage inflicted, that makes his father laugh,
finding it a ridiculous approach, as taking a chance on love is all that
matters in life, even if the love doesn’t survive. Apparently estranged from these two boys, as
he abandoned them and their mother at an early age, he’s invited them here to
reveal a strange premonition he’s been having, as he senses his impending
death, though medical experts give him a clean bill of health. Nonetheless, he wanted to share this feeling
and see both of them. Taken aback by
this strange admission, they’re not close enough to their father to really
understand what this means, as they barely know him. Continually stuck on their phones, they
barely know each other and have little to say, estranged by the passing of
time. Byung-soo still feels like a
“Mama’s boy,” as he’s taken on his mother’s characteristics, slender and overly
sensitive, while the burly Kyung-soo more closely resembles his father, not
only in size but in disposition, having much more confidence in himself, though
he refuses to acknowledge to his father that his marriage has fallen apart,
refusing to be associated with failure.
Ko finds his younger son’s cautious viewpoint towards women overly
pathetic, believing he’ll never amount to much, as life is too short to waste
it all on fear and apprehension, and that love is too precious to ignore,
acknowledging he and their mother married too young, before they came of age,
eventually having little in common. His
artistic temperament requires greater scrutiny than she desired, as his candid
remarks and outspoken nature became too much.
Despite being dumped by his latest girlfriend, he basks in the reveries
of the love they shared when they had it, regretting nothing, finding that
among the loftiest ambitions a man can aspire to (an apparent rationalization
for leaving his wife and children for his current affair with Kim Min-hee),
attempting to pass on some of that knowledge to his two sons, but it escapes
them. Their awkward response to their
father’s candid admissions is more than noticeable, becoming humorous, with
both taking notes at one point, as if bowled over by his paternal wisdom. Realizing he hadn’t brought them anything, no
special gifts, he actually excuses himself to buy some stuffed animals, as if
they’re still a couple of 8-year olds in his eyes.
Drifting back and forth between the two hotel guests, the
film has a kind of somnambulistic tone, with cheesy music interrupting
occasionally, usually putting a punctuation point on the end of a scene. As it turns out, Yeon-ju is certain the car
out front is the same car she had a recent accident in, yet it’s been expertly
repaired, with no signs of damage.
Nonetheless, out of impulse, she steals a pair of gloves out of the
front seat, as if getting back for the harm it caused her. After brief a nap, with both women snuggled
together on the same bed, Sang-hee is less judgmental about the married man’s
abusive behavior towards her, taking on a more forgiving tone, where she
doesn’t appear to be someone that holds a grudge, as she’s ready to move on
with her life. The closeness of the two
women stands in sharp contrast to the emotional aloofness of the men, with Ko
quickly realizing he hasn’t much to say to either son, creating a theater of
awkward moments. Taking a short walk to
a nearby restaurant, Yeon-ju notices the same identifiable car out front,
sensing this is more than mere coincidence, eager to discover who the owners
are. The father and his two sons are
already well into their meal, each drinking heavily, with confessions coming
fast and loose, louder and less controlled than earlier, simply blurting out
remarks, with no regard whatsoever that they’re in a public place, as the two
women seated nearby overhear everything, but never interfere, as it’s more of a
public spectacle than anything else, where one family is literally putting on a
show. As if instrinsically aware of the
dirty laundry being aired, the two women conclude, “By nature, men are just
incapable of grasping love.” When the
sons start describing in no uncertain terms exactly how their mother actually
feels about her ex-husband, they hold nothing back, pulling out every adjective
in the book to describe him as the living depiction of evil personified, “a
total monster without a single redeeming human virtue,” growing meticulously
accurate in their carefully chosen words, becoming a surrealistic exposé on
black humor, as it’s a raucously hilarious scene, with the boys feverishly
piling it on, each outdoing the other, yet it’s all so dead serious, never once
cracking a smile, using deadpan delivery to heighten the effects. Clearly this is the centerpiece of the film,
filled with the exact kind of personal attacks this director has had to endure
publicly in the South Korean headlines, where his affair has been the subject
of gossip columns and endless scandal, receiving much greater press coverage
for the scandal than for his directorial prowess, with both forced to flee the
country to get away from it all. The
autobiographical nature of this scene will forever endure, like something out
of the Maurice Pialat realm, as it’s brilliantly performed, perfectly
choreographed, given a documentary feel of unhinged honesty. Of course, while this is happening, all
Yeon-ju can think of is getting an autograph from that budding director, with
Sang-hee finding that thought contemptible, to at least wait until after
they’re done with their meal. This is
actually one of the better constructed scenes in any Hong film, certainly in
years, where it stands out in tone from anything else seen earlier, as this was
a notably quiet film with barely any drama to speak of. With the release of all the fireworks, a
markedly different atmosphere prevails, with the father cleverly tricking his
sons into believing he’d already left, but it’s all a ruse to ditch them so he
can share a few drinks with the young ladies, reading them a poem he’d written
on the spot while they ply him with even more alcohol. This game of hide and seek, using smartphone
texts to create a diversion, works all too well, much like how they missed each
other earlier in the hotel café, showing how easily we avoid and miss each
other, finding it hard to connect even when trying, told with a tinge of
melancholy and sadness, where the rapid changes of the modern world only leave
us more isolated and alone, feeling ever more disconnected and adrift.
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