Summary

A quietly hilarious, deceptively tense portrait of art and money, this is peak Hong Sang-soo: scrappy, boozy, and sharp.

The immutable law of all film festivals is this: there will be a Hong Sang-soo film, and you will see the Hong Sang-soo film. WHAT DOES THAT NATURE SAY TO YOU (그 자연이 네게 뭐라고 하니), his 33rd feature in 30 years, is another opportunity to catch up. But if you’re already familiar with his work, you’ll know exactly what kind of terrain you’re entering.

Hong remains a keen observer of Korean social norms, often through the lens of male artists bumbling their way through long walks and booze-soaked self-reflection. Here, that avatar is Donghwa (Ha Seong-guk), a thirty-something aspiring poet who has rejected his wealthy family’s money. For the first time in three years of dating, he’s meeting his girlfriend Junhee’s (Kang So-yi) family at their Incheon home.

Initial conversations with her father (Hong regular Kwon Hae-hyo) are polite enough, but as the day progresses into night, and the alcohol flows, the carefully balanced social niceties start to unravel. Hong has long used his characters to reflect on class and art, and here Donghwa appears to be one of the most feckless examples of the model. He’s a listless poet who holds a verse together about as well as he holds his liquor. That is to say, poorly.

Through seemingly listless conversations, cigarette breaks, many meals and repeated voyages in Donghwa’s beat-up 1996 Kia, Hong’s commentary on art and money continues. The standout dinner scene sees Junhee’s father put Donghwa through an inebriate inquisition, gradually coaxing out a portrait of a man whose idealism may just be an excuse for inertia. It’s tense, but hilariously so. It’s ‘peak Hong’ as I’ve come to know it.

Hong seems even less interested in technical polish this time out, which is saying something. The low-budget camera lingers in long, often static takes. Awkward zooms drift in and out, pixelation obscures details, and night scenes are dim and fuzzy. It’s all deliberate, of course, a style that has long since become his signature rather than a limitation.

At nearly two hours, this is one of Hong’s longer efforts, but it never drags. Like the oversized meals that fill the screen, it’s hard not to keep coming back for seconds. For a filmmaker so committed to minimalism and repetition, Hong still manages to surprise, and WHAT DOES THAT NATURE SAY TO YOU is one of his most successful outings in recent memory.