Summary
With moments of surprising visual poetry and a familiar cheeky humour, this is Hong Sang-soo at the top of his game.
If you are a follower of Hong Sang-soo’s films, you probably have a firm idea what you’re getting into. His plainly shot features, with loose plotting and semi-autobiographical leanings, will feature a familiar cast drinking, sleeping, and walking around public places.
So, depending on your point of view, HOTEL BY THE RIVER (강변 호텔, or more literally Gangbyun Hotel) is either peak Hong or much of the same. Self-aware from the opening frame, a monotone voice reads the credits and shooting dates like it’s the audio descriptive version of the Wiki summary. For new initiates, it’s the first sign of his cheeky sense of humour and dialogue with the viewer.
As with Hong’s previous films, the plotting is simplicity itself. Of course, appearances are deceiving and relationships are not what they seem. Convinced that he’s dying without any evidence to support this, poet Ko Young-hwan (Gi Ju-bong) invites his sons (Kwon Hae-hyo and Yu Jun-sang) to his temporary home in a hotel by shores of the wintry Han River. Their time together occasionally intersects with that of A-Reum (Kim Min-Hee), a woman who has been betrayed by the man she lived with and has called her best friend Yeon-Joo (Song Seon-Mi) for support.
From the moment Hong has established his sense of place, he starts messing with our notion of time and distance. Near misses between characters and long waiting times for people to arrive aren’t simply trademarks but are used here to cocoon us completely in this insular little conclave. He even brushes against magical realism, with snow appearing after everyone nods off to sleep for a short time, although never delves completely into that space.
Comedy comes from the most unexpected places, such as social manners or over polite strings of “thank yous,” along with the autograph seeking hotel clerk. At other times, Hong is answering critics and speaking directly to viewers who are in on the joke. “He doesn’t appeal to the masses,” comments one of the two women discussing Yu Jun-Sang’s filmmaker character. “Sounds boring,” quips the other.
Yet it’s with the character of Ko Young-hwan, taking on the more traditional Hong-proxy role, that leads to moments of rare beauty and heartbreak. There’s a moment in the back half of the film that Ko reads a poem over the soft-focus vision of a young man at a gas station, giving us one of Hong most elegant moments amidst his lo-fi handheld leanings. It’s a visual foreshadow for the heart-wrenching final moments, some that elegantly bring several threads full circle in a far stronger way than his earlier sly winks.
Like the titular river, audiences will undoubtedly find themselves on one side or the other. A film that deals with duality and dreams as abstractly as a David Lynch outing, and filled with equal parts subtle allegory and plain-faced realism, this is classic Hong Sang-soo.
2019 | South Korea | DIRECTOR: Hong Sang-soo | WRITERS: Hong Sang-soo | CAST: Gi Ju-bong, Kim Min-hee, Kwon Hae-hyo, Song Seon-Mi, Yu Jun-sang | DISTRIBUTOR: Korean Film Festival in Australia 2019 (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 96 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 22 August – 12 September 2019 (KOFFIA)
