The Novelist's Film (So-seol-ga-ui yeong-hwa)

 

Writer/Director Hong Sang-soo

director on the set

Production Manager Kim Min-hee with actress Lee Hye-young

Hong Sang-soo at Berlin

Hong Sang-soo with Kim Min-hee

THE NOVELIST’S FILM (So-seol-ga-ui yeong-hwa)                      A-                                 South Korea  (92 mo)  2022  d: Hong Sang-soo

Everyone wants to realize their life in their own way.                                                                    —Jun-hee (Lee Hye-young)

Shot in two weeks in Hanam outside Seoul in 2021, the place where the director now resides (Actor Kim Min-hee and director Hong Sang-soo welcome ...), made during COVID restrictions, with plenty of masks worn onscreen, this film was the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize winner (2nd Place) at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival.  Working with a minimal number of actors, Hong was in charge of writing/directing/producing/editing/cinematography/sound design, while also composing the wonderfully affecting orchestral music that plays near the end.  While there are many instances of adapting a novel into a film, this flips the script and instead portrays a novelist making a film, shining a light on the role of the artist, holding a mirror up to Hong himself, and in the process asks “What is art?”  Films where encounters and random occurrences are deliberately incorporated into the narrative often correspond to the works of Krzysztof Kieślowski, but this film is a manifesto for Hong himself and his entire body of work, beautifully capturing the intimacy of the theatrical space between the characters and the audience through the art of cinema, where the free-flowing, exploratory conversations that comprise his 27th feature evolve into what may be the sweetest and most majestical ending in the entire output of his career, with the high contrast black and white film suddenly erupting into full-blown color, much like Tarkovsky’s film ANDREI RUBLEV (1966).  Hong Sang-soo may be the Mike Leigh of South Korea, continually writing new screenplays with a familiar stable of actors that understand his dialogue-driven, understated style.  Lee Hye-young, from In Front of Your Face (Dangsin-eolgul-apeseo) (2021), one of the most prominent South Korean actresses in the 1980’s, plays the novelist Jun-hee, seen mingling outside a small bookstore after hearing some harsh words spoken inside, only to be greeted warmly by the bookshop owner Sewon (Seo Young-hwa), a former colleague and estranged friend who has fallen out of touch and stopped writing altogether, preferring to choose what she wants to read instead of what she feels forced to read, placing her in a much better place, assisted by a much younger neighborhood helper in the store, Hyun-woo (Park Mi-so).  While both claim to have read her latest book, like many others that follow, strangely no one offers any personal comments or feedback about it.  Invited inside, Jun-hee grows curious about the young assistant, Hyun-woo, who stopped acting to work in sign language, which immediately perks her interest, quickly learning how to recite poetry in sign language, which makes her almost gleeful, like a little kid with a brand new toy, literally opening up new worlds.  Sign language, like film, is a pictorial, movement-based representation of words, elevating the beauty of the everyday, where we could almost call it silent cinema.

There is a good deal of repetition and déjà vu in Hong’s films, much like Cézanne’s repeated use of painting apples, with reiterations of familiar themes, where we’re simply picking up from where we left off in the long continuum of life.  Literature is very present in the film, filled with current and former writers, while Hong is himself a writer and a filmmaker, where only his very first film was a literary adaptation, as all the rest have been written by Hong, with scenes unraveling like new chapters.  Through the duration of the day, Jun-hee meets people old and new, including a director that she’s known and had a falling out with and his wife, a well-known actress and her husband’s film-student nephew, as well as a poet friend from her days of youth.  While Hong’s previous film In Front of Your Face (Dangsin-eolgul-apeseo) starring the same actress showed a preoccupation with mortality, much like Hotel by the River (Gangbyeon Hotel) (2018), which are two of Hong’s better films, here she is faced with the potential terminal nature of her talent as she can’t seem to write anymore, confessing a growing weariness over needing to inflate “small things into something meaningful” in her writing, fearing her writer’s block might be permanent, yet she still has a joyful and creative spirit, where this film is about finding inspiration and happiness in the smallest of things.  Dropping her off at the Hanam Union Tower, a prominent landmark in the area with floor-to ceiling glass windows and its distinct observation deck with a telescope offering expansive, panoramic views of the Han River, Paldang Dam, and the surrounding park.  It’s here she bumps into Yang-joo (Cho Yun-hee, who first appeared in THE DAY AFTER in 2017) and her husband, a successful filmmaker Director Park (frequent collaborator Kwon Hae-hyo since working on In Another Country (Da-reun na-ra-e-seo) with Isabelle Huppert in 2012).  As they retreat for coffee with a view overlooking the Han River, old business festers, as Park was unable to make a film about one of her novels, claiming financing fell through, but she thinks he sold out to commercialism, something they both regret, where the impact is exacerbated by awkward and uncomfortable silences, revealing hurt and anger beneath the underlying tension, but the moment is saved when he pulls out powerful binoculars that resemble a director's viewfinder, offering intensely close, Zoom-lens views of the expansive park below, which seems to fascinate the novelist, wanting to check out the walking paths herself, where they decide, with signs of spring in the air, that it’s a perfect day to be walking outside.   

When they step outside, by sheer coincidence, they run into a famous actress, Gil-soo (Kim Min-hee, who is also credited as Production Manager), who has been absent a while in Hong’s films, altogether missing in the prior film, with just a small part in the one before that, so it’s a pleasure to see her again, as she is the real star of this film, where the warmth of her personality just permeates every frame, in stark contrast to the other characters, who aren’t nearly so interesting, something the novelist picks up on right away, The Novelist's Film | Exclusive Clip YouTube (1:36), becoming immediately fascinated by her, especially when learning she’s not acting anymore, purely by choice, which seems to endear her to Jun-hee, who is facing the same sort of career dilemma.  While Gil-soo has already been walking for an hour, working up a sweat, things get even more heated when Director Park makes a flippant comment that it’s ”a waste” she’s not using her acting talents anymore, as there are so many directors who would want to work with her.  Taking offense to the remark, the novelist berates the director in the same manner that Gi Ju-bong brings the soju-fueled wrath on budding young actor Shin Seok-ho in Introduction (Inteurodeoksyeon) (2021), finding his attitude selfishly paternalistic, as if she’s not capable of making her own choices and deciding what’s best for her, as it’s not always about commercial success.  This seems out of character for the novelist, but perfectly in sync with Hong’s movies, as there’s always some passionate argument to be made that crosses the line, going too far in a cringeworthy moment that stands out in a film otherwise comprised of casual moments.  When the novelist and the actress go out to eat afterwards, there’s a jovial moment when a young child on the sidewalk stares through the window at the actress, where her face hovering there is like a ghostly specter, apparently moved by what she sees.  Not everybody gets this director, yet those that do believe he’s never made a bad film, combining literary ambitions with cinematic art, where his simplistic, naturalistic style stands in stark contrast with what passes for movies nowadays at the local Cineplex.  Not playing in normal channels, you have to intentionally seek out Hong’s films, most of which attract fewer than 100,000 customers in Korea, with only TURNING GATE (2002) at 120,000, WOMAN IS THE FUTURE OF MAN (2004) at 280,000, and WOMAN ON THE BEACH (2006) at 230,000 surpassing that figure, though more recently it’s less than 10,000, yet his films play regularly on the festival circuit, where this is the third year in a row he has won an award at the Berlin Film Festival.   

Introduction (Inteurodeoksyeon) works as a prelude to this film, with the old actor Gi Ju-bong returning as an older poet friend for another drink-filled table session, consuming makgeolli this time, adding his own arrogant and condescending views, insisting that “a storyteller needs a story” when making a movie, which defies the novelist’s intent, while also adding humor, as Hong’s films essentially have no story to speak of.  Yet this seems to be the spark that draws the novelist to the young actress, suddenly inspired to make a realist-oriented short film together, something that could be done in just a day or two, as she’s always been curious about making a film, and this could be her opportunity.  Intentionally female-focused, the men’s views tend to be outdated and derivative, typically exhibiting a form of male privilege, while the women show the courage to change the direction of their lives in search for something new, where artistic freedom seems to matter the most.  Gil-soo introduces the novelist to her husband’s nephew (Ha Seong-guk), who is in film school, but thoroughly capable of using a camera, leading to a simply fascinating ending that screens the short film in an empty theater attended only by the actress herself, sitting all alone, exactly as she did in On the Beach at Night Alone (Bamui haebyun-eoseo honja) (2017).  While we never see the film other than brief excerpts, Hong goes completely experimental on us with an extremely happy Kim Min-hee gathering flowers for a bouquet, and then marching towards the camera as she hums the here comes the bride wedding song, an internalized reflection of her relationship with Hong, making this achingly real, a wishful-thinking moment that is also raw and tender.  The nation of South Korea won’t allow his divorce when his former wife refuses, so he remains married to an uncooperative partner who successfully prevents any new marriage.  Kim also lost endorsement deals and even her management company because of the scandal, and has since then only acted in Hong’s works.  Exchanging words of love with the director behind the camera, the black and white explodes briefly into color, like a true fantasia, completely capturing the sheer joy on her luminously expressive face, with a gorgeously written orchestral interlude that underscores the revelatory nature of this special occasion, unlike anything ever seen in any other Hong film.  Like John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands, or Jia Zhang-ke and Zhao Tao, this may be the definitive love letter from a director to his leading actress, as she is literally the driving force behind the filmmaker’s evolution to more female-sympathetic viewpoints, to his growth as an artist, and a rejuvenated joy and sense of purpose in his life.  The film continues with a short aftermath following the brief end credit sequence, making this one of the director’s most clever films, a film with a preoccupation on art and the lives of artists, existentially examining the profoundly personal, individually unique struggles they face.