Tales of Cinema: The World of Hong Sangsoo

 

July 27–August 17, 2024

East Building Auditorium, The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

 

 

Few contemporary directors have amassed as vast and prolific a body of work as Hong Sangsoo. Working at an unparalleled pace, the South Korean auteur has helmed 25 of his 27 narrative features this century. Each is a valuable addition to an oeuvre that returns time and again to the same themes, preoccupations, and strategies, but always with a fresh angle and a radically new way of telling a familiar story. Hong’s films seize the material of everyday life—regret, infidelity, professional frustrations, the casual cruelty and brutish folly of men and women alike—in the service of exploring psychology and metaphysics in elegant and subtly profound ways.  

 

This career retrospective was originally organized by Dennis Lim and Dan Sullivan and is made possible in Washington thanks to the generous support of the National Museum of Korea. Co-presented with the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art and the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. All notes courtesy of Film at Lincoln Center. All formats DCP unless otherwise noted. 

 

 

Saturday, July 27, 2:00 — 3:55 p.m.

생활의 발견 On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate

Filmmaker Hong Sansgoo’s fourth feature is a playful and profound meditation on love, fate, and how we try to make sense of reality’s essential ambiguity. After an actor is passed over for a part, he leaves Seoul to visit an old friend and former classmate; the friend recounts to him the legend of the Buddhist temple Turning Gate, which then, as if by magic, initiates a series of romantic dalliances. First, a young dance instructor falls head over heels for him, and then a married woman swears she knows him from somewhere. He begins to wonder if this second woman is his soulmate, but eerie coincidences and feelings of déjà vu make his choice between the two women ever more uncertain. (2002, 35mm, Korean with English subtitles, 115 minutes)

 

 

Sunday, July 28, 2:00 — 3:30 p.m.

극장전 Tale of Cinema

A tale of what cinema can do to those in its thrall, filmmaker Hong Sangsoo’s sixth feature is composed of two halves. In the first, a young man encounters a woman he used to know, and after a drunken night together, the two make a double-suicide pact. In the second, a slightly older man has a seemingly similar experience. It becomes apparent that the first half was in fact a film-within-the-film whose male lead appears to be based upon him. A key work in the first phase of Hong’s career, Tale of Cinema is something like a Rosetta Stone for his subsequent twice-told tales. (2005, Korean with English subtitles, 89 minutes)

 

 

Sunday, August 4, 2:00 — 4:25 p.m.

밤과 낮 Night and Day

A successful painter facing marijuana possession charges flees his Korean home for the streets of Paris in filmmaker Hong Sangsoo’s ambling portrait of midlife male discombobulation. A run-in with an old flame, now unhappily married; a series of tearful phone calls to his wife back home; a cautious affair with a young art student; a visit to a church; brief stirrings of lust and affection and homesickness and regret—Hong captures it all with effortless grace and calm matter-of-factness, until a late-film swerve into fantasy caps the whole thing off with a mischievous question mark. (2008, English, French, and Korean with English subtitles, 144 minutes)       

 

 

Saturday, August 10 2:00 — 4:40 p.m.

다른 나라에서 In Another Country 

The figure of the doppelgänger, a frequent motif in filmmaker Hong Sangsoo’s oeuvre, receives one of its most radical treatments in this breezy vacation comedy. Isabelle Huppert stars as three different women—a French filmmaker, a philanderer, and a divorcée. Across three discrete but overlapping stories, each visits a seaside resort town and encounters a Korean filmmaker (Kwon Hae-hyo), his pregnant wife (Moon So-ri), and an amorous lifeguard (Yoo Joon-sang). A structurally complex exercise in narrative repetition and a charming, lively comedy of misunderstanding and desire, In Another Country is one of the funniest and most surprising installments in Hong’s body of work. (2012, English, French, and Korean with English subtitles, 89 minutes)

 

 

클레어의 카메라 Claire’s Camera

Filmmaker Hong Sangsoo’s 20th feature—one of his three films to premiere in 2017—is a light, sunny divertissement shot on the fly during the Cannes Film Festival. Set far from the red carpet, Claire’s Camera is a cautionary tale about mixing business with pleasure. A sales agent (Kim Minhee) is fired mid-festival for her “dishonesty,”which turns out to be code for sleeping with a director who’s also involved with her boss. The revelations emerge with the help of a French tourist named Claire (Isabelle Huppert), a detective of sorts who helps others see their situations more clearly. Kim and Huppert make for a delightful pair amid the kind of cross-cultural comedy that also defined Hong’s Huppert-starring In Another Country. (2017, English, French, and Korean with English subtitles, 69 minutes)

 

 

Saturday, August 17 2:00 — 5:00 p.m.

Introduction followed by In Front of Your Face

 

Join us for a post screening discussion with Tom Vick, curator of film, National Museum of Asian Art

 

인트로덕션 Introduction 

In filmmaker Hong Sangsoo’s steady yet playful hands, even the simplest premise can become a puzzle box of unpredictable, poignant human behavior. Introduction is a prime example of his casual mastery.  It is a breezy yet complexly structured study of a group of characters—most crucially parents and their grown offspring—trying to relate to one another via a series of thwarted or stunted meetings and introductions. The story is centered around a young man (Shin Seok-ho) on the cusp of adulthood, confused about his romantic relationships and professional goals. (2021, Korean with English subtitles, 66 minutes)

 

 

당신 얼굴 앞에서 In Front of Your Face

Both beguiling and oddly cleansing in its mix of the spiritual and the cynical, In Front of Your Face finds the prolific Hong Sangsoo in a particularly contemplative mood. After years of living abroad, a middle-aged former actress (Lee Hye-young) has returned to South Korea to reconnect with her past and perhaps make amends. The film takes place over the course of one day in Seoul, via various encounters—with her younger sister, a shopkeeper who lives in her converted childhood home, and, finally, a well-known film director with whom she would like to make a comeback. They show us resentments and regrets, her financial difficulties, and the big secret that is keeping her aloof from the world. (2021, Korean with English subtitles, 85 minutes) 

 

The end time for this event is estimated. End times may vary with post-screening discussion, audience Q&A, or other factors. All film events finish by 5:00 p.m.

https://www.nga.gov/calendar/film-programs/hong-sangsoo.html

 

 

홍상수 영화 연보/ Hong Sangsoo Filmography 

The Day a Pig Fell into the Well (돼지가 우물에 빠진 날, 1996)

The Power of Kangwon Province (강원도의 힘, 1998)

Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (오! 수정, 2000)

On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate (생활의 발견, 2002)

Woman Is the Future of Man (여자는 남자의 미래다, 2004)

Tale of Cinema (극장전, 2005)

Woman on the Beach (해변의 여인, 2006)

Night and Day (밤과 낮, 2008)

Like You Know It All (잘 알지도 못하면서, 2009)

Jeonju Digital Project "Visitors": Lost in the Mountains (어떤 방문: 첩첩산중) (short film, 2009)

Hahaha (하하하, 2010)

Oki's Movie (옥희의 영화, 2010)

The Day He Arrives (북촌방향, 2011)

List (리스트) (short film, 2011)

In Another Country (다른 나라에서, 2012)

Nobody's Daughter Haewon (누구의 딸도 아닌 해원, 2013)

Our Sunhi (우리 선희, 2013)

"Hong Sang-soo": Venice 70: Future Reloaded (홍상수 베니스 70: 미래 리로디드) (short film, 2013)

Hill of Freedom (자유의 언덕, 2014)

Right Now, Wrong Then (지금은맞고그때는틀리다, 2015)

Yourself and Yours (당신 자신과 당신의 것, 2016)

On the Beach at Night Alone (밤의 해변에 혼자서, 2017) 

Clair's Camera (클레어의 카메라, 2017)

The Day After (그후, 2017)  

Grass (풀잎들, 2018)

Hotel by the River (강변 호텔, 2018)

The Woman Who Ran (도망친 여자, 2020)  *베를린영화제 은곰상(각본상)

Introduction (인트로덕션, 2021)  *베를린영화제 은곰상(각본상)

In Front of Your Face (당신 얼굴 앞에서, 2021)

The Novelist's Film (소설가의 영화, 2022)  *베를린영화제 은곰상(심사위원대상)

Walk Up (탑, 2022) 

In Water (물 안에서, 2023)

In Our Days (우리의 하루, 2023)

31. 여행자의 필요 A Traveler’s Needs, 2024  *베를린영화제 은곰상(심사위원대상)

 

 

 

홍상수의 영화사상 걸작 10편

 

영국의 영화 전문지 '사이트&사운드(Sight & Sound)'가 2012년 영화 사상 위대한 영화 250 (Greatest Films Of All Time)의 순위를 발표했다. 다음은 홍상수 감독이 선정한 영화사상 걸작 10편.

 

라탈랑트 L'Atalante(1934) 장 비고 Jean Vigo

항구를 떠나는 배 Boat Leaving the Port(1895) 루이와 오귀스테 뤼미에르 Louis et Auguste Lumière

익사에서 구조된 부뒤 Boudu Saved from Drowning(1932) 장 르누아르 Jean Renoir

초여름 Early Summer(1951) 오즈 야스지로 Ozu Yasujirô

녹색광선 The Green Ray(1986) 에릭 로메르 Eric Rohmer

탈출한 남자 A Man Escaped(1956) 로베르 브레쏭 Robert Bresson

북극의 나누크 Nanook of the North(1922) 로버트 플래허티 Robert J. Flaherty

마자린 Nazarín(1958) 루이스 브뉘엘 Luis Buñuel

오르뎃 Ordet(1955) 칼 데오도르 드라이어 Carl Theodor Dreyer

청년 링컨씨 Young Mr. Lincoln(1939) 존 포드 John Ford

 

 

홍상수 감독

1961년 서울에서 태어나 중앙대 영화과를 중퇴한 후 캘리포니아 미술공예대학(California College of Arts and Crafts) 졸업 후 시카고아트인스티튜트(Art Institute of Chicago)에서 석사학위를 받았다. 1992년 귀국 후 SBS-TV '작가와 화제작'의 PD로 일하다 1996년 '돼지가 우물에 빠진 날'로 데뷔했으며,  '하하하'로 칸영화제 주목할만한 시선상(2010), '우리 선희'로 로카르노 영화제 은표범상(감독상, 2013),  '지금은맞고그때는틀리다'로 로카르노영화제 황금표범상(대상, 2015)을 수상했다. 한국예술종합학교와 건국대 영화과 교수를 지냈다.

 

*홍상수 영화는 왜 나를 슬프게 하나: 지금은맞고그때는틀리다

*NYFF61 홍상수 감독의 변(Artist Statement) '물 안에서(In Water)' ★★★★☆

*NYFF61: Hong Sangsoo's Artist Statement "In Water" ★★★★☆

*홍상수 감독 인터뷰, An Interview with Hong Sangsoo, 2004