Absurdity of the Mundane: The Cinema of HONG SANG-SOO
The Day After (2017)
Chance encounters, an aversion to the rules and freeform writing are all ingredients that have formed the cinematic oeuvre of Hong Sang-soo. While essays have been written in attempts to deconstruct the code that is his body of work—in reality, his work is much more simple.
He makes films of people—people in rooms: drinking, sharing, loving, basking in the beautiful absurdity that is our life. It is the mundane that piques the interest of Hong Sang-soo and by shining a light on the everyday idiosyncrasies of human relationships, Hong illuminates it, with a beauty that can often be forgotten.
Tale of Cinema (2005)
After drifting in his teenage years while avoiding studying for the entrance exams to university, Hong met a theatre director, via a drunken introduction from his friend. This director suggested that if he wasn’t doing anything, why not try his hand at theatre. It was this chance suggestion that resulted in him enrolling to study theatre at university, before quickly changing to film.
While living in America to study at a post-graduate level, Hong encountered the artwork of Cezanne and it was at this point that he felt a stirring in himself. This was art, this was perfection. From this point onwards he was infused with an energy and drive to create more narrative films, to tell stories about humanity and the relationships that bind us together.
The Day After (2017)
His works are uncomfortable, stunning tales of connection and misconnection. Of euphoria twinged with the harshness of reality and regret. While at times his films have been criticised for being slow, one-dimensional and at times repetitive to the point of being self-indulgent— for fans of his work these criticisms are what truly make his movies worth viewing. They are a slow burn, an antithesis to the cinema of Hollywood, that is more focused on quick gratification and pleasure.
To appreciate and take stock of the world that Hong has constructed over the past decades, let’s look at the themes, motifs and techniques that Hong employs most regularly.
CLASSICAL COMPOSITION
“At the age of nineteen, I was supposed to pass the entrance exam to the university. But I did not want to study. When visiting one of my friends who played the piano, I said to myself that I could maybe compose....-Hong Sang-soo”
There is a scene in Nobody’s Daughter Haewon (2013), when one of the main characters, distraught after a recent breakup, tearfully listens to a pop-rendition of Beethoven’s 7th symphony. Hunched over like a shell of a man, his figure viscerally displays the inner emotion that this music stirs in him. A reminder of the loss that he has just experienced. What was once musically a point of connection between two people, has been reduced to a bitter memory.
Hong’s fascination with classical music is clear to see, as his films are laced with them. For a filmmaker that is very stark and minimalistic in his use of music, when he does decide to pick a piece for his movie, it is always very deliberate. At times he has even gone so far as to compose music himself, recording low-fi renditions on his phone, before adding them to his films.
Nobody’s Daughter Haewon (2013)
2. FRENCH NEW WAVE
““When I watch Rohmer’s films, they contain what I like in Cézanne...I like the lines he draws between a concrete environment and an abstract construction...For me, Rohmer seems to connect the concrete and the aspiration for abstraction in a similar way.””
Often compared with the naturalistic cinema of Rohmer, Hong creates characters that are steeped in authenticity. They don’t have a grand narrative, a world to save or even as much as a goal at times. They are impotent, messy, deceitful; but it is this humanity and basis in the truth that is the bait that lures the viewer in. They are instantly relatable and at times even too real, reminding us of people we have stumbled upon in our own everyday lives.
On the Beach at Night Alone (2017)
3. THE ZOOM
“I cannot explain to you why I use zooms, I really can’t. I started using them on my sixth film. By doing it I discovered that I could create a special rhythm in continuity. And it’s so easy. I just kept doing it ever since. I didn’t want to make it my trademark.”
In his 2015 film Right Now, Wrong Then, Hong uses a total of thirty-two zooms. While these was a relatively cheesy technique that was more popular in the cinema of the 70s. His use of the zoom is quite subtle and enhances the mood and ambiance of his films. They are a slight nudge from the director to pay attention; to focus on the shift in tone that has just occurred or to highlight the absurdity of a recent statement from one of the characters.
The Power of Kangwon Province (1998)
4. LITERATURE
“I don’t know who I should mention, but they are almost all writers, novelists. Hemingway is important, Chekhov and Dostoyevsky too. But the artist I admire the most is Cézanne. When I discovered his paintings at graduate school, I thought they were perfect –I don’t need anything else. I felt an intimacy that really touched me. I had the feeling of being in front of perfection.”
Many of Hong’s film’s titles are allusions to literary history, references to classic novels and poetry. His writing process is unconventional, in the sense that he writes all of his scripts the morning of his shoots, only allowing his actors one hour to learn their lines and rehearse.
His scripts are not fixed, they are fragments of his surroundings, an observation he made during the day of shooting or even just the book that he was reading during pre- production.
This improvisational, innocent way of creating is evident in his film On the Beach at Night Alone (2017). In one scene a Hong-like character expresses his feelings towards another by reading a passage from Chekhov’s About Love, admitting for the first time his love. The book was something that Hong was reading at the time and in a spur of the moment decision, decided to add this to the script.
Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (2000)
5. SOJU
“Because I like to drink; it’s an important aspect of my life. Why should I avoid this kind of situation I’m so familiar with? I have no hobbies. Many people fish or travel, etc. I don’t.”
It wouldn’t be a Hong Sang-soo film without the intoxicating effects of alcohol. From ill- timed comments to drunken outbursts, his films are littered with the awkward social interactions fuelled by drinking. A drink that often crops up is the Korean drink soju.
Customarily the drink is poured for ones drinking partner, which leads to some painful situations in Hong’s movies; in which characters pour drinks for those that they’ve been arguing with moments before. Funnily, Hong often uses real alcohol while filming; the flushes in the faces of the actors not caused by makeup but by their own inebriated state.
Woman Is the Future of Man (2004)
6. DEJA VU
“So all the questions are kept alive if there’s an infinite possibility of worlds. It’s like a permanent reverberation.”
Half way through Right Now, Wrong Then (2015) the film restarts. The film is literally duplicated within itself, creating a remake. The characters are the same, the situations, locations and even some of the lines are exactly the same. However slight variations in responses and observations of the characters result in the course of the narrative switching. What begins as a tale of a slightly egotistical film director, reverses and paints him in a more sympathetic light the second time around. He is more sensitive and attune to those around him and in such, missed communication turns into a more authentic connection.
Night and Day (2008)
7. THE ABSURD
“Before shooting I try to observe as much as I can. I don’t want to work with my strong intention, because if you work with a strong intention I think what you do is you repeat what you’ve heard and what you’ve seen in the past.”
In a sense Hong Sang-soo is an atypical artist. Rather than craft a distinct narrative and impose his will open the feature, he rather allows the story to unfold before him. He looks to capture the fine nuances in life and human behaviour. Not through a conscious choice but rather allowing things to come to him. It’s almost Daoist and spiritual in certain points of view, but the director himself admitted that intention is something that one can never truly remove from your work; it is the pursuit and attempt that is important.
Woman on the Beach (2006)
8. MINIMALISM
“I am wary of clichés and big expressions...I never try to share a truth, but only approximations.”
Hong Sang-soo writes about what he knows, about the peoples, the lives and social structures of characters that resonate with him. He isn’t trying to make any global statement about how the world really is, but rather just make keen observations of the people that interest him, the objects that he finds beautiful and the moments of time that resonate with him.
His films are stripped back, removed of artifice, allowing space for the viewer to take their time and appreciate what is being shown before them. Minimalist masterpieces in an increasingly hectic existence.
Hotel by the River (2018)