Three by Hong Sang-soo: All in a Year’s Work
Sep 15 — Sep 23, 2018
Since completing his first feature, The Day a Pig Fell Into a Well, in 1996, South Korean Hong Sang-soo has been one of the most prolific directors in the world, averaging one film per year. But recently he has been in overdrive, releasing three films in the past year. All three – On the Beach at Night Alone, Claire’s Camera, and The Day After – arrived at festivals in 2017, and were distributed in the United States in 2018 by The Cinema Guild. After presenting a complete retrospective of the director’s work in 2016, the Museum is pleased to catch up with these recent Hong films. Audiences can find recurring rhymes and connections between distinct pieces—anchored by the excellence of actress Kim Min-hee, who stars in all three films. Each new Hong movie stands on its own virtues, while also seeming like a new episode in a vast overarching serial narrative, a grand super-story about ceaseless self-sabotage, blinkered yearning, male vanity, the resolute failure to learn from mistakes, and the moments of tenderness and beauty which could almost, maybe redeem the whole human comedy.