Hong Sang-soo presents one of his most deliberate films yet, ruminating on the intersection between art, family, and acceptance.
It seems reductive at this point in Hong Sang-soo’s career to talk how each of his films are the “same” because of its similar themes and minimal narratives. Art, drinking, autofiction, prolonged conversations over a meal, and his repetition in scenarios opens up the nuances in his storytelling in enlightening ways that turn audiences away due to preconceived judgement, but also creatively invigorates the film form and narrative structure. Capping off his third decade of filmmaking with his thirty-fifth film at the age of sixty-five with Nowhere to Lay My Eyes, Hong continues on his artistic endeavors in exploring the depths and progress of his storytelling capabilities, recently continuing a more political phase since his 2024 masterwork, By The Stream. His latest, which won the Best Director and Best Actress prizes at the 79th Locarno Film Festival, examines the minutiae of life and relationships through an accepting, yet principled perspective.
Sang-hee, played by Kim Min-hee, visits her estranged mother (Choi Myung-gil) and step-father (Kwon Hae-hyo) in Jeju Island with her prudent brother (Shin Seok-ho) over a course of three days. After the initial greetings, flatteries exchanged between Sang-hee and her mother raise tension from the past. It’s quite clear that it has been a long time since they last met, especially because it is Sang-hee’s first time meeting her step-father. In Hong fashion, details of the past are never explained, rather its reactions and responses provide insight into the relationship. Sang-hee lives an eclectic life compared to her business forward brother, being an experimental filmmaker on the side, while working at a foreign import snacks company to make a living. The film goes through the usual Hong strokes where eating, drinking, conversing occurs, until the next day begins, where Hong places brief description titles at the beginning of each day describing the day’s weather, forecasting an unpredictable tone shift amongst the characters.
The simplicity of Hong’s narrative of each day goes toward his simple image compositions that range from unremarkable to painterly landscapes of nature, as well as his economic camera movement, ranging from minutes-long takes to side pans that detail sly characterizations from the cast of five. The successful mother coddles Sang-hee constantly, possibly for missed time due to the divorce during Sang-hee’s upbringing, by excessively complimenting and even buying land for her when she passes, but shows micro-outbursts of aggression. Sang-hee toes the line between appreciation and resentment that only comes between a parent and mother. Contrasted by the stepfather’s daughter, who sincerely catches Sang-hee off guard, is truly interested in her experimental films, as she can relate through her paintings and nags her for YouTube links upon their first meeting. These relationships are simple at face-value, but Hong’s scenarios interact with each other, building new meanings and understandings of the characters.
But what spoke to me the most is Hong’s ongoing deconstruction and philosophy that seeps in through everyday life, nature, and art. Sang-hee’s wholesome stepfather, a documentarian who specializes on observation, brought Sang-hee on an emotional critical take on non-fiction films, stating how much of a “scam” the truths of these documentaries, leading to a stark, ferocious monologue ending with the propaganda Israel uses towards its genocide on Palestine. These two filmic approaches between Hong’s fictions and the observational approach vary, but something about finding the process and beauty through time and space bonds them. Sang-hee, who lives a simple life, sees beauty and comfort in the everyday, from flowers to ponds, accepting the natural order of life. Her approach is something akin to Hong, creating films with only themselves as the precedent, whether it is the constant iterations of his work interacting with each other, its place in the contemporary relative to aging, or simply capturing the essence of life through relationships. Hong simply continues to go deeper into his well of life’s complexities through subtle gestures and interactions that capture the beauty within the dysfunction.
