By the Stream (Suyoocheon)

 

Writer/director Hong Sang-soo

Kim Min-hee with the director

The director shooting on location

BY THE STREAM (Suyoocheon)     B                                                                                     South Korea  (111 mi)  2024  d: Hong Sang-soo

Are you a commie?                                                                                                                       —Professor Jeong (Cho Yun-hee)

Proving that he’s something of a one-man band, Hong Sang-soo writes, directs, films, edits, produces, and composes the few frames of music for this film, all but confirming that perhaps as much as he is a filmmaker, Hong Sang-soo is also a prolific playwright, creating a cinema that constantly relies on the power of conversation, like variations on similar themes, often linked to each other in near subliminal fashion, becoming theatrical compositions of his own internal expression.  An astonishingly prolific filmmaker, with forty film credits since the late 90’s, his films are largely inaccessible, with no screening or streaming options available to most persons, seemingly existing in their own universe, yet he’s an extremely conscientious artist, working with such regularity, churning out a variety of small-scale chamber dramas that are immediately recognizable, yet despite the similarities, somehow each new film is a revelation, like new chapters of an infinite novel, as he’s exploring territory that no one else working anywhere in the world today is making films about.  Told in a barebones, naturalistic style, ignored by the commercial masses, where you wouldn’t think any of this would matter to an ever-changing world that spits out such grandiose mega-hits designed for the Cineplex, apparently to take our minds off of the cruel realities that exist all around us, yet somehow Hong Sang-soo finds a way to articulate the small details that continue to matter, like opening up cracks in our existence.  For the last four years, Hong has presented two films each year at major film festivals, registering somewhere between comedy and tragedy, exploring themes of infidelity, artistic aspirations, and communication breakdowns, this latest film reunites Hong with actress Kim Min-hee for their fifteenth film together, while this is the eleventh film working with actor Kwon Hae-hyo.  These familiar faces provide a level of comfort in Hong films, like a reunion of old friends, as if we know what to expect, where they provide a sense of reassurance to viewers with their intelligence, curiosity, and emotional restraint.  Hong typically avoids heavy planning and pre-production, scouting locations just a week or so ahead of time, preferring to withhold handing his actors a full script, instead writing the dialogue for each day’s shoot in the morning, allowing his actors only an hour or so before shooting begins, freeing up his actors to make more spontaneous choices in the moment, using an editing process that rarely takes more than a day, where Hong’s directional style relies upon authenticity and observation, accentuated by his use of long single takes, where this film, notable for its autumnal color, may have the shortest end-credits in memory. 

Like all of Hong’s works, the film is stripped of all artifice and is largely character-driven, where the performances are always elevated, as the director is never afraid to examine the small, often overlooked details of daily living, like hidden detours along the way, where he finds a way to delve into the complexities of life through loneliness, isolation, and fleeting connections.  Finding inspiration in nature, the reclusive Jeon-im (Kim Min-hee), an arts professor at Duksung University, a small private women’s college in Seoul, spends her free time on the banks of a local stream of the Han River sketching the changing patterns in her notebook, as she captures the changing colors of a pastoral autumn landscape of a stream running toward a bridge, and then weaves those patterns into tapestries on her loom later, creating larger works of art.  When she’s not creating her own textile art, she’s teaching a small group of performance art students, where the sleepy rhythms of this university campus are rocked by the startling revelations of a budding sex scandal, as a male student director from another university has been accused of an abuse of power by sleeping with three of the seven actors (who all dropped out simultaneously) just ten days before a play is scheduled to be performed at the university’s annual skit contest, leaving them in emergency mode trying to find a replacement director.  Desperate to find a solution, Jeon-im turns to her Uncle Chu Si-eon (Kwon Hae-hyo) to step in, a bookstore owner leading a quiet yet comfortable life by the sea, a man she hasn’t spoken to in ten years, but he was also a widely celebrated stage actor and theater director, hoping he can write a new script and finish directing the project.  Much to her surprise, he accepts the challenge, bringing him into the fold, where he arrives with ideas already in mind, hoping to provide the last-minute saving grace.  Jeon-im’s boss, Professor Jeong (Cho Yun-hee), has been extremely supportive and is largely responsible for securing her position at the university, yet she’s also intrigued by the presence of Chu, as she followed his career on television and in the theater, and has always wondered what happened to him, as he simply disappeared from having any public presence.  As it turns out, Chu’s bookstore is largely an excuse for him to appear busy when, in reality, there are very few customers who frequent the store, so the idea of resuscitating his creative juices is like a needed jolt of adrenaline.  The academic setting is a return to the director’s early films, where he was such a subtle and distinctly original force in the industry, making quiet, low-budget cinema, often featuring the inappropriate actions of brooding, self-absorbed men who tend to drown their sorrows in alcohol, social awkwardness, and meaningless sex, shining a light on human fallibility and the everyday idiosyncrasies of personal relationships.      

While there’s plenty of eating and drinking, always the centerpiece of Hong’s dramas, as these interactions drive the central questions of the film, where pauses for smoking cigarettes overlooking a picturesque stream offer Zen moments of melancholic reflection, perhaps the biggest surprise is Jeong’s infatuation and sudden interest in Chu, which is a startling development, especially as it leads to a romantic affair, with Jeon-im utterly dismayed at watching it blossom before her eyes, discovering her uncle is not the man she believed him to be.  Autobiographical elements are interspersed throughout, with Chu, a stand-in for the director, acknowledging at one point that he’s no longer with his wife of many years, that she finally agreed to a divorce after a decade of separation (Hong’s own wife refuses to divorce him so that he could marry Kim, where the scandalous public revelation of their affair all but killed Kim’s career outside of Hong’s work), and that he hasn’t spoken to his own sister (Jeon-im’s mother) since she accused him of being a “commie,” so this new romance is like a fresh start in life, but it leaves Jeon-im more than a little perplexed at finding herself in such a precarious position, relying upon her uncle not to spoil the good thing she has going at this university.  Making matters worse, she runs into the guy she fired (Ha Seong-guk), only to learn he hasn’t left the university grounds and shows no remorse for his actions, believing he did nothing wrong, but his presence alone is like a stalker in their midst, adding a creepy element that lies under the surface at an otherwise safe haven.  Where it all leads is to an understated dramatic skit that includes the women eating the last of their dwindling ramen supply, vowing to conserve their goods in a nod to socialism, overshadowed by a blaring industrial roar, which is poorly received while also creating some controversy, where this snippet of a live performance is not like anything in Hong’s films that we’ve seen before.  Celebrating with his cast afterwards in a restaurant, apparently fascinated by this youth generation, Chu asks “What kind of person do you want to be?,” turning into a somewhat improvised poetry session performed by the students speaking their inner thoughts, voicing their hopes and fears about the future, which are tinged in sadness, as they’re not particularly optimistic, while remaining very ambiguous about what the skit is actually about, yet the four women (Kang So-yi, Park Han-bit-na-ra, Oh Yoon-soo, and Park Mi-so) are like a Greek chorus standing in unison against an established male patriarchy, as the disgraced director’s actions mirror an incident in Chu’s youth where his shameful treatment of a female student at this same school still haunts him to this day.  We also learn that Chu made some rude comments about a famous actor he worked with that got him blacklisted from the business, and that 40 years ago he staged a radical theater piece at this same university that caused a scandal, perhaps an allusion to Kwon’s offscreen leftist activism ([Feature] An actor turned activist, later in life).  The unspoken theme is that art requires taking risks, potentially alienating one’s audience, as Hong is an artist who has faced his own public condemnation for his extramarital affair with Kim, and is viewed as a fiercely independent, minimalist artist standing outside traditional avenues, where the haiku-like simplicity of his work is something many critics just don’t get.         

Runner

Writer/director Marian Mathias

actress Hannah Schiller

Mathias with producer Joy Jorgensen

Jorgensen and Mathias

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RUNNER                   B                                                                                                             USA  France  Germany  (76 mi)  2022  d: Marian Mathias

Shot on grainy 16mm by Jomo Fray with an almost square screen, nearly every shot of this low-budget film is accentuated darkness, among the darkest films on record, with barely any hint of light or signs of hope, while the flat landscape of a nameless place in Missouri reveals nothing but foreboding skies, creating a grim, yet austere frame for this near wordless film drenched in poetic imagery, resembling the abstract mosaic of Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder (2012), where the overpowering force of nature dwarfs any human presence, yet a two-story farmhouse home rises elegantly in its statuesque stillness, the only home seen for miles in an isolated community composed of mostly German immigrant families.  What’s different is an ominous presence of gloom that mysteriously inundates the screen instead of the luminous beauty in Malick.  This dour outlook may take viewers by surprise, refusing to tell a conventional story, or write intelligible dialogue, allowing the pictures to tell the story, with overcast skies leading to downpours of rain, casting a bleak shadow on the itinerant lives that grace the screen.  More abstract than a typical first feature, yet the concise nature of this 75-minute film eliminates all excess and sentimentality, becoming an exercise in brevity, where you have to admire the tenacity of making a film few will ever see, with no real character development or drama, yet it's starkly different from anything else out there, so film festivals may be the only available outlet.  Haas (Hannah Schiller), meaning rabbit or runner in Dutch, is a tender 18-year old girl raised by a cantankerous single father, Alvin (Jonathan Erickson Eisley), who seems to be something of an alcoholic con man or schemer, trying to swindle money out of people that don’t have it, specifically targeting the local preacher, showing up with his daughter in church, then singling him out after the services, pestering him with fabricated land opportunities, trying to entice him in his latest financial scheme, but the preacher deftly avoids him, claiming it’s God’s day.  So instead Alvin spends the day getting drunk in a local bar, muttering to himself when he loses his key and is locked out of his own home, so he breaks a window and crawls in, immediately calling the preacher on the phone at his home, blabbing away with no real regard to whoever’s listening, revealing just how alienated and reclusive he’s become, using the preacher as some sort of sounding board for his cockamamie ideas and stream-of-conscious ramblings until the preacher hangs up on him, leaving him alone in the dark.  Soon afterwards he tumbles from the top of the stairs, falling to his death, as a few neighbors congregate on the bottom edge of the frame, where only the backs of their heads are seen, a Greek chorus arriving and staring at their empty mansion, busybodies gossiping about what happened, wondering if he would have died if the girl was home, wondering where she was and why she was away.  It’s a sad state of affairs, with death adding a dismal edge to the already gloomy atmosphere, where Haas is often seen trudging through the desolate roads, a solitary figure walking long distances on her own, becoming a defining motif.  Receiving a 30% tax credit from the State of Illinois, the dreary windswept landscape resembles Béla Tarr’s The Turin Horse (2011), another father and daughter team on the edge of the apocalypse, where the oppressive force of nature continually closes in on them.  

Haas quickly learns that the bank is about to foreclose on their home due to unpaid back payments, while it was her father’s wish to be buried in his home town, a tiny Illinois hamlet along the Mississippi River, traveling with the coffin by train, including a shot from the darkness of an open door on the train looking down on the illuminated world outside, reminiscent of a similar shot in John Ford’s THE SEARCHERS (1956), where the only available housing is a decrepit old boarding house, described as an inn, run by a fussy old geezer (Gene Jones) who spends his time dozing off on the couch while watching old black and white movies on TV.  The emptiness of the surroundings couldn’t be more austere, with barely any trees on the horizon, just empty cornfields, with Haas seen walking along an isolated rural road, when a man on a bicycle offers to give her a ride, as it’s about to storm.  By the time they get to the protective shelter of the inn both are drenched from a downpour, with her newfound friend, Will (Darren Houle), waiting out the storm until he can safely return home, needing to get to work the next morning.  Haas, left to bury her father alone, is disappointed that the burial keeps getting postponed due to inclement weather conditions, as the graves fill with water during the storms, needing time to dry out, extending her time spent in what seems like the middle of nowhere.  One could easily understand why her father felt the need to move away, as there is nothing holding anyone to this community.  Haas meets Will again, spending time romping through the cornfields, opening up to each other, discovering hidden secrets, yet it’s not the conversation that elicits information, instead the imagery infuses the film with the first signs of anything resembling hope, even as the darkened skies continue to provide an oppressive tone, concentrating on immense cloud formations, where the skies take up more than 90% of the frame, leaving humans on the ground submerged in the enormity of their surroundings.  While there’s a poetic interplay in the cornfields where he teaches her to sing I Saw the Light (Remastered) - YouTube (2:43), a country gospel song with a gritty working class sentiment, sung by a faithless man searching for redemption, they quickly learn about each other’s lives, both distanced and estranged from their families, with Will frequently calling home in the solitary confines of his room, sending them money, remaining connected with the people that matter to him, yet he continues to find work in distant places, like migrant workers following the seasons, where this blustery cold fails to provide many opportunities.  He repairs an old bike from a junk pile so he and Haas can ride their bikes together, exploring the barren roads in long silences, often resembling the last two souls living on earth.  The aching loneliness of their lives defines who they are, and connects them in small ways, never really expressing romantic inclinations, remaining tenuous at best, but there are no other emotional connections in the entire film, making them the centerpiece of a largely untold drama, awakening feelings both felt no longer existed, stirring something deep in their souls, but neither one seems inclined to act on it.  Instead, the darkened imagery of the immensely flat landscape holds sway over everything we see, with brief musical interludes from Para One, who composed the music for Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman (2021).     

By the time Alvin is actually buried Haas has lost interest, having showed up so many times, only to be told the burial would be delayed, leaving a kind of numb experience, as if disconnected from the world, where a looming departure is uneventful, feeling inevitable.  Will takes a job on a Mississippi riverboat that floats up and down the river in a neverending journey, allowing him to watch the continuously elusive shoreline from the decks, a veritable Huckleberry Finn adventure, never intermingling with the river towns that dot the shoreline.  This adds a dreaminess quality to the film, drifting along the river, always distanced from what he sees, with lights along the shore appearing like specks in the dark.  When Haas returns home, back to the same house, the neighbors re-appear on the edge of the frame, describing her pitiful state, having no one left in the world, where the repossession of the home looms over the horizon and could happen any day now.  The preacher describes the distressing mental state of her father as “his roof wasn’t nailed tight,” claiming someone needed to tell her the truth, but it’s probably nothing she doesn’t already know, as the instability of the surrounding world is slowly creeping in on her, thinking of Will, with visions of him watching the shoreline from the boat, perhaps looking for her face, leaving her hopeful for the future and the possibilities that may await her.  Searching for herself in all the photographs and memorabilia, the film raises the existential question of where she really belongs, and just what exactly is her community.  The Greek chorus of onlookers don’t appear invested in her life, watching from afar, never offering to help, never once befriending her in her loneliness and grief, leaving her to wallow in her own sorrows on her own.  Train whistles can be heard off in the distance, as if beckoning her to take another journey, to experience life outside the smothering claustrophobic walls of a house that doesn’t even belong to her, yet it’s all she knows.  Then, inexplicably, she bolts out the door, running as fast as she can, chasing that elusive dream that lies just ahead of her, as a freight train meanders over the horizon, and flocks of geese fly in formation across the sky.  The loneliness and complete isolation of these lives become an exploration of tenderness and quiet desperation, yet may not be a film for everyone, requiring patience and reflection, as it’s never emotionally engaging or dramatically compelling, but lures us in from the power of the imagery, resembling the month of November, eloquently recalled in a scene from Sydney Pollack’s THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR (1975) when Robert Redford describes what he sees in the black and white photographs of Faye Dunaway, “You take pictures, beautiful pictures, but of empty streets, and trees with no leaves on them.  Not quite winter, they look like November.  Not autumn, not winter, in between,” also reminiscent of the stark emptiness of Andrew Wyeth landscape paintings, Andrew Wyeth. Christina's World. 1948 - MoMA.  Almost entirely a state of mind, this film pushes the edges of what a film can be, reduced to a bare minimalism, yet the essence of the film is unrealized possibilities, where a murky ambiguity clouds the troubled early days of a coming-of-age story.