I have a complicated relationship with the films of Hong Sang-Soo. My first Hong film was in a theatre full of Korean people 8 years ago. I remember the room roaring with laughter. The movie seemed okay, but was it really that funny? Perhaps it was a language barrier. I was frustrated. I told myself I didn’t like the film. The next year, I found myself back at another film and this time, I found myself smiling, maybe even enjoying it, but I still wasn’t sold.

I moved to Japan with my wife a few years ago and while I was there I saw the Hong film Hill of Freedom about a Japanese man going to find a woman he was with who is now back in Korea. English becomes the common language and the actors slowly work their way through the single-shot scenes. Their struggle with language seems to strip away their ego. We get to see these people for who they really are. This greatly reflected my experience of spending a year in small-town Japan. This movie felt so sincere, yet so simple and Hong played with time with such a masterful command. I knew I was wrong about him immediately.

A switch was flipped. Every Hong film I’ve seen since then has been pure joy. Every film plays out the same way. People meet, for the first time or after a long time, and they agree to go for a drink or coffee or food. Booze always makes it’s way into the picture and things escalate. It’s a simple formula, but it’s Hong’s nuance as an actor’s director and his understanding of subtext that drive the films home. He has become one of my favourite filmmakers and I struggle to rank his films, as they are basically consistently fantastic. This is a director who pumps out at least one film a year. Often two. In 2017 we have been gifted with three Hong Sang-Soo films, but only one will be screening at VIFF…

Hong is known as the “Korean Woody Allen” for his prolific output and dialogue focused films that are presented as light comedies, but often devolve into something darker or more meaningful. Hong is also no stranger to scandal. In 2016 news spread of an affair he had with Kim Min-Hee, who starred in 2015’s wonderful Right Now, Wrong Then. They openly announced their relationship in early 2017 and Hong has released three films that are drawn from this episode of their lives.

The beautiful Kim Min-Hee joins him in Claire’s Camera as the dubiously named Man-hee. She works as a salesperson for a film company and is selling a film at Cannes when her female boss dismisses her after losing trust in her for some unknown reason. We learn shortly after that Man-Hee slept with the director she works for, So Wan-Soo. She meets Claire, (Isabelle Huppert) who is on vacation, as she is introduced she exclaims, “This is my first time in Cannes.” Claire likes to take pictures with a polaroid camera. She tells her subjects that a photo is a big deal, because when your picture is taken you are changed forever.

Reality and time have a tendency to be intangible in a Hong Sang-Soo film. Sometimes it seems as if we are watching stories from different dimensions. Scenes contradict one another. Repetition and mirroring are commonly employed. Hong never loses control of all the loose ends, but rather opens the film to deeper philosophical readings.

This is my first review of a Hong Sang-Soo film. It feels like I’m just reviewing his films in general, but that’s not so bad. Every Hong film has echoes of another. Each of his films feels equally personal. Stylistically he rarely strays. This is perfect, because you know what to expect going in. You can relax and watch his stellar stable of actors hit beat after beat in long single takes. Charting the dramatic arc of a single scene can be exhilarating, as a conversation can go from small talk to tears to romance and end in a brutal fight. Hong stations his camera near a table full of empty soju bottles and captures the ups and downs with perhaps my favourite use of the zoom lens in cinema. His timing and stubborn insistence to zoom in and out over the course of a shot works for me every time. It’s a trick that shouldn’t work, but Hong knows exactly when and where to do it and the effect is intoxicating.

I have nothing bad to say about Claire’s Camera. It was a lovely break from the heavy festival fare. The cast is wonderful. The broken English provides for hilarious awkward silences and silly conversations. Kim Min-Hee’s series of collaborations with Hong have proven to be some of his best. The confessional nature of these films feels voyeuristic at times, but the lack of distance is courageous.

Funny and touching, Claire’s Camera fits well among the works of Hong Sang-Soo. If you have yet to see his films, don’t sleep on it, you have a lot of catching up to do and he will probably have released three more by the time you finish.

A cold look at the social hierarchy in Japan under the guise of a murder mystery. Tanaka (Satoshi Tsumabuki) is an investigative journalist who specializes in articles about murders. He has become obsessed with a case from a year before, where a family of three was brutally killed, and sets out to interview people close to the victims. The mystery takes an immediate back seat to social commentary as we are treated to a series of flashbacks that piece together the relationships of the victims with their university friends.

Tanaka’s sister, Mitsuko, (Hikari Mitsushima) has been arrested for child neglect, she seems to be working through some kind of trauma from her past. Tanaka’s obsession with his story seems to be connected somehow to his sister’s incarceration. Perhaps he just needs the distraction.

A film told through flashbacks has a danger of being cloying or melodramatic, but first time director Kei Ishikawa manages to avoid this by keeping a distance between the audience and the subject. If you watch the trailer for this film, you will go in expecting a thriller, but there is not a single thrilling moment in Gukoroku. Tension remains low through much of the film and even the somewhat obvious plot twists are somehow presented with no fanfare whatsoever.

I feel this is the strength of the film. The focus on Japanese social status and hierarchy helps it stand out from the slew of similar films that are produced on a yearly basis in Japan. Ishikawa’s keen sense of Japanese double speak and body language provide for some really great gut punch moments. The film falters in it’s final act when Ishikawa struggles to keep all the plates spinning. There is an unfortunate kitchen sink approach to the final act of this film that may have worked in a real thriller, but feels out of place in a drama so seriously focused on a class system in Japan.

Gukoroku is a good film. A strong debut and Ishikawa’s European background and seemingly deep connections, (considering the pedigree of his cast) tells me that we will probably be seeing some interesting films coming from this guy in the near future.

-Taylor Bishop