Domangchin yeoja

Hong Sangsoo makes it look so easy: his latest film finds reservoirs of wisdom and sneaky wit in a trio of unassuming rendez-vous. The common thread is Gamhee (Hong’s longtime star Kim Minhee), a young woman who takes some rare time out while her husband is away and visits three friends at diferent stations in life. Hong’s exquisitely written 24th feature understands how sometimes we figure out our own lives through the reflections we present to other people, who are tied to particular moments in a shared history. Gamhee chats with Youngsoon, an older divorcee who is now living with another woman; Suyoung, who is looking for a change but keeps getting harassed by an ornery poet; and in an intriguingly fraught meeting, Woojin, a theater employee married to a novelist that Gamhee once dated. Hong’s storytelling is sometimes described in terms of cinematic puzzles, but the pleasures of his latest are neither mannered nor cerebral: Gamhee’s encounters add up to a flowing portrait of being in the world and dealing with the past that’s one of Hong’s most purely enjoyable outings, while still retaining a sense of mystery. Bonus: a justly celebrated cat cameo that captures the filmmaker’s playfulness about it all. (Nicolas Rapold)

Hong Sangsoo: VIRGIN STRIPPED BARE BY HER BACHELORS (2000), WOMAN IS THE FUTURE OF MAN (2004), TALE OF CINEMA (2005), 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), RIGHT NOW, WRONG THEN (2015), YOURSELF AND YOURS (2016), ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT ALONE (2017), CLAIRE’S CAMERA (2017), THE DAY AFTER (2017), GRASS (2018), HOTEL BY THE RIVER (2018)