I watched the new movie by Hong Sang-soo tonight, The Woman who ran. I had previously seen other two of his works and I always found them boring, but this man is internationally acclaimed for his good filmmaking (especially by my former cinema forum teacher), so I went despite of my negative experiences. I did want to try luck, in order to see if his alleged wonders caught me this time.
Perhaps it’s a bold statement to make having only seen three movies by this man, two of them being his two last works (including Turning Gate and Gangbyeon Hotel), but I feel that Hong Sang-soo repeatedly does the same thing every single time. One could state that other directors have the same practices, but at least Woody Allen is able to change settings and genres sometimes. This man, it seems that really doesn’t. Fixed cameras, blank, baffled faces and intranscendent conversations between people under a varnish of intended intimism (that turns out being too intimate to engage the watcher with their conversations) are all the things I witnessed. To me, I would get the same effect with going to a bar and standing still in front of a table with two people talking about their lives and not understanding anything because I neither know them, nor witnessed the beginning of their conversation.
Either Hong Sang-soo has made his whole career with that kind of cinema because it’s easy to shoot and he can justify it with a well-prepared speech aftwerwards, or that kind of movie is the only thing he manages to do well but is good at hiding this fact. Honestly, now that I think of it, that attitude is a kind of art too! Props to him in either case. But, certainly, it’s not for me.
I seem to be so obtuse that Hong Sang-soo’s sensibility and intimate touch is too fine for me to appreciate. If you do, then I am glad for you, really. You have better senses than me in this aspect.