Summary
- Hong Sang-soo’s movies capture the beauty of everyday life, focusing on daily rituals and small moments of gratitude.
- His films maintain a consistent style and thematic approach, depicting life as circular, stable, and serene.
- The inclusion of Kim Min-hee as his muse has had a significant impact on Hong’s career, adding a personal and heartfelt element to his storytelling.
Hong Sang-soo has become a fixture in the world’s most revered film festivals, the fruit of the audience’s great admiration for his approach to everyday mundanity. The South Korean filmmaker made his feature debut in 1996 and has, ever since, remained one of the most active film directors of his generation, totaling over 30 movies in nearly 30 years of his career.
The beauty in Hong’s movies is plain to see: in daily remarks, small celebrations, and tokens of gratitude. His style hasn’t changed much over the years, but all of his movies share a portion of distinguishable trademarks that no other contemporary filmmaker could possibly recreate. Those who are keen on simplicity will find gold in Hong’s precious movies.
How Hong Sang-soo Captures the Beauty of Life’s Simplest Pleasures
A recurring remark when it comes to Hong’s movies is that he’s been making the same film for years now. Though he keeps a steady flow of yearly screenings at festivals from all over the world, they all cover the same themes and are conceived with the same reasoning and approach. It’s not about making the same movie over and over again, but rather depicting life as it unfolds through his eyes: circular, stable, and serene.
Hong understands that so little ever changes; every person on Earth witnesses a great event or encounters a special person every once in a while, but that’s not life — those are the exceptions. Life is essentially the small rituals we carry out every day: walking the dog out, trying to learn an old song on the guitar, buying milk at the nearest convenience store. The moments in between — the great ones — are just passing by. His movies tend to orbit around these exceptional events that seldom occur without actually being about them; Hong is more interested in the space in between.
In that sense, one will always stumble upon the same set of elements in a Hong Sang-soo movie, both thematically and visually. Long takes usually set the mood of the scenes, while distinctive zoom-ins get the audience closer and closer to what Hong wants them to perceive. His movies are also filled with passion for the art of filmmaking and art in general. His main characters are either film directors, aspiring artists, or actors in a turbulent moment in their careers. To seek refuge from the frustrations of professional life, they opt for a change of scene, reaching out to old friends and distant lovers in an effort to get rid of the mundane.
In one of his earlier movies, On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate, a young actor fails to find success and travels to the countryside to visit an old acquaintance of his. There he finds love and awakens a subtle and ancient local legend. Over 20 years later, in Hong’s latest movie, In Our Day, a similar plot conducts the narrative: an aging actress contemplates her old friend’s peaceful life in the company of a cat. It’s almost as if his stories were all drawn to each other, just so they can finally come full circle again. There seems to be a conflict of interests in identical stories: the fate of these characters is the same, but the people they meet are different. There’s no denying that each of his characters and all of their frustrations reflect on Hong’s own personal life — that has never been clearer now that he’s met his muse, Kim Min-hee.
Finding His Muse Completely Altered Hong Sang-soo’s Career
Ever since the release of Right Now, Wrong Then in 2015, Kim Min-hee has starred in 10 out of 13 Hong Sang-soo movies, establishing herself as the filmmaker’s one and true muse. If one has any doubts about whether Hong’s movies are merely a reflection of his life, one could simply watch On the Beach at Night Alone and witness one of the most heartfelt confessions ever put onscreen.
The movie orbits entirely around Mim as she wanders aimlessly across a seaside town; passionate about a married man she left behind, she resumes their relationship in dreams. In the final scene, Mim’s character finally confronts her lover, an aging film director. It’s an angry, yet emotional scene, and the veracity of the feelings put at stake hints at a sad truth underneath. Hong and Kim got involved in a major scandal in Korea after their affair was made public. The fact that there was a 20-year age gap between them added to the fact it was an extramarital affair was a shock at the time. After all, adultery was still illegal in 2015, when their first movie came out.
On the Beach at Night Alone is therefore a confession of two troubled lovers blending into one. A similar phenomenon happened in real life, with Kim becoming a key part of Hong’s filmmaking process. Most of his latest movies are interested in worshiping her every movement, yet Hong’s perception of everyday mundanity hasn’t really changed; it just gave him one more reason to meditate on it further.
There were times in Hong’s career when fiction and reality turned into a single entity, and there were times in which fiction had to serve the purpose of an exhaust valve; all the gloomy feelings had to be let out in his movies. Hopefully, the current state of Hong’s career is close to a delicate hand caressing the viewer’s head. For some time now, his narratives have been fueled by love in earnest. Korean cinema needs filmmakers like Hong, who evoke the passing of time and the familiarity of days in an honest fashion.
