So-seol-ga-ui yeong-hwa

Das Schaufenster eines Buchladens. Eine Dame tritt ein und wird Zeugin eines kurzen Streitgesprächs, das im Off stattfindet. Eine der Stimmen, erfahren wir, gehört der Besitzerin des Buchladens. Die Dame ist Schriftstellerin und angereist, die Buchhändlerin zu besuchen. Die Besuchte hat früher einmal auch geschrieben. Warum der Besuch stattfindet, werden wir nie erfahren: Meister Hong in seinem Element, eine kleine Begebenheit, an der sich peu à peu ein ganzes Universum entzündet. Es geht um den Umgang mit den eigenen Talenten und um die Möglichkeit, im Leben – außer Trinken – doch noch etwas ganz anderes zu machen. Schlicht und ergreifend. (Katja Wiederspahn)

Weitere Vorstellungen im Rahmen der Retrospektive Hong Sangsoo ab 2. November im Filmmuseum.
In Anwesenheit von Hong Sangsoo und Kim Minhee.

In the film’s second scene, the titular novelist asks her friend’s assistant, who is working at the used bookstore where the scene takes place, if it’s possible to translate poetry into sign language. The question is a challenge that runs through the film and through cinema itself: is it possible to translate poetic experience into images and sounds? Scenes showing that it can indeed be done are not lacking, thinking of the way a forest or a walk is filmed here. But these scenes are not the center of the story (if there even is one). Maybe Hong has simply created an effective way of making cinema which abandons the notion of an evolving story – in favor of another system that logically ties together small sustained scenes that function as playful inquiries into language and its effects on the characters.
To set the film in motion, all that is needed for a novelist is to meet an actress she admires and ask her to make a film, or for the same woman to visit an old friend who owns a bookstore. It may not seem like much, and it isn’t, but the pleasures here are myriad nonetheless: the intelligence of the dialogues, the extremely unusual use of black and white in almost the entire film, the moments chosen to alter the framings through the use of zoom, the scenarios selected and the interaction between the performers. (Roger Koza)

Further screenings will be shown from the 2nd of November as part of the Retrospective Hong Sangsoo at Filmmuseum 
In the presence of Hong Sangsoo and Kim Minhee.

Hong Sangsoo: VIRGIN STRIPPED BARE BY HER BACHELORS (2000), WOMAN ON THE BEACH (2006), NIGHT AND DAY (2008), HA HA HA (2010), IN ANOTHER COUNTRY (2012), NOBODY’S DAUGHTER HAEWON (2013), OUR SUNHI (2013), HILL OF FREEDOM (2014), CLAIRE’S CAMERA (2017), THE DAY AFTER (2017), GRASS (2018), HOTEL BY THE RIVER (2018), THE WOMAN WHO RAN (2020), INTRODUCTION (2021), IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE (2021), WALK UP (2022)