In the homes and bars that populate the South Korean capital of Seoul, two people sit across from each other at a table. They smoke, drink lots of soju, and talk about everything and nothing: love lives, careers, future goals and past mistakes. It’s small-scale scenes like these, shot in long takes, that dominate the work of South Korea’s master of indie minimalism, director Hong Sang-soo, whose film The Woman Who Ran is now streaming .
Released in 2020, The Woman Who Ran is Hong’s 24th film since he began filmmaking in 1996. Fellow compatriots and have achieved great success in their careers, from directing Hollywood films to making the first non-English film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, as the latter did with his twisted thriller Parasite (also ).
Hong, however, has quietly established a cult following in South Korea and abroad, focussing on stripping his films down to their essentials and capturing the fleeting moments of life, crafting films that are hugely rewarding viewing.
The Woman Who Ran follows Gam-hee, played by Kim Min-hee, Hong’s regular leading lady and, , romantic partner. She has returned to a part of Seoul she hasn’t visited in years, catching up with old friends she hasn’t seen in some time, and unexpectedly bumping into someone she shares some history with. Each of these conversations meanders from topic to topic, their small-talk tiptoeing around conflicts within their lives. It’s a film that would be categorised as a ‘talking picture’, fitting in with such SBS favourites as American indie legend , mumblecore pioneer Andrew Bujalski, and French New Wave icon Eric Rohmer, the latter of whom Hong is often compared.
Gam-hee (Kim Min-hee) strolls along the streets of Seoul in ‘The Woman Who Ran’. Source: Jeonwonsa Film Co. Production
Hong’s minimalism extends to his production process, with him often taking on multiple roles: directing, writing, producing, editing and composing the score. Only once he has assembled his actors, a small crew and locations does he begin writing, not a script, but a basic treatment of his story. It’s only on the morning of shooting that Hong scripts the scene, a practice he repeats every day of shooting, giving his cast a half-hour to rehearse.
It’s a writing regimen that resembles that of a procrastinator, but Hong’s writing is guided by observing how the cast interprets his scripts in the moment, from small hand gestures to emphasising particular words, allowing his films to evolve over the course of production in unexpected ways. “I get up at 4am, I smoke, and something I didn’t expect comes to me,” he told of his writing process.
To observe these small gestures is why Hong films each scene in one long take, allowing the actors to perform freely and uninterrupted. As the actors explore the scene, Hong does the same with his digital camera, panning between actors and his trademark sharp zooms on anything that catches his eye in the moment – a particularly humorous one in this film occurs when Hong’s camera lands on a stray cat that appears to pose for the camera.
Gam-hee and Young-soon (Kim Min-hee and Seo Young-hwa) in ‘The Woman Who Ran’. Source: Jeonwonsa Film Co. Production
While Hong’s films are minimal, his writing showcases a literary flair. A key device used in his films is repetition, occurring in both obvious and subtle ways. He has long received criticism for it. He mocks said criticism in this film when Kim Sae-byuk’s character says of her husband: “It’s absurd how he repeats himself. If he just repeats himself, how can that be sincere?”
But his use of repetition serves the story, each repetition revealing a character’s inner-most thoughts, notably when Gam-hee repeats her story that this trip is the first time she and her husband have been apart in five years. “He says people in love should always stick to each other,” she says. With each telling, she sounds less and less sure about her relationship with a man who may be controlling.
Over the years, Hong has shifted his focus from male protagonists to female. One feature that hasn’t changed is the obnoxious behaviours of male characters, as exhibited in the men who intrude on each of Gam-hee’s encounters in this film. A neighbour has a grievance over stray cats being fed, while a poet stalks a woman after a one-night stand and accuses her of humiliating him. Even a rooster is observed behaving like a jerk, pecking hens on the back of the neck as a show of dominance. These encounters feel small, but Hong highlights these examples of everyday sexism, aiming a critical eye at patterns of behaviour that occur often, and are often dismissed.
Gam-hee (Kim Min-hee) in ‘The Woman Who Ran’. Source: Jeonwonsa Film Co. Production
Since the release of The Woman Who Ran, Hong has released two more films, with another due soon. While many are stylistically similar, each is their own puzzle waiting for audiences to unlock, hopefully discussed over a bottle of soju, with The Woman Who Ran the perfect gateway into this small world.
The Woman Who Ran is streaming at SBS On Demand.
