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She has never lived in a high-rise apartment, and she wonders how her sister can live at this height every day. A few days ago she kind of burst in to stay with her sister, and she is now becoming re-accustomed to life in Korea. While seeming to keep a grave secret to herself, she manages life one day at a time with a sense of mindfulness. Meanwhile a certain director, some years younger than her, has asked her to join his project, and after a polite refusal, they have agreed to meet for the first time today. Downtown Seoul is filled with narrow alleys that harbor tiny old bars, and that's where they meet. As they are getting drunk, there is sudden rainfall and thunder.
Dangsin-eolgul-apeseo, Delante de ti, Perante o teu rosto, Juste sous vos yeux, 活在你面前, 在你面前, あなたの顔の前に, 당신얼굴 앞에서, Прямо перед тобой, შენი სახის პირისპირ, Davant teu
Life really hits different when you're staring down the barrel (of debt, of disaster, of depression, of anything). Suddenly the same trees you've been passing every day look sacred with the rays of sun filtered through their infinite bowing branches. Or the sunset which takes on a new meaning that fills you with sudden sadness, a heliotropic reminder that everything will end. Even the faces on the subway are no longer extra-ordinary but extraordinary, appearing so beautiful that you could almost lick them; you won't, of course, but you wouldn't have even considered that before. It sometimes takes the drastic to make us this aware, but there's just something sublime in the every-day, the every-thing, the every-where. We just have to notice what's right in front of our face.
One of Hong's more direct movies. He still uses his favorite two part structure, but he isn't much interested in how stories are told as usual, the film starts by stating the main character current philosophy and then just gives it ample room to breath and contextualize. Very haunted by the pandemic. It is effective two long meetings and it makes the best at tracing how the main character relate to her sister and later an admiring self absorved director. The big laugh she gives when she gets his text the next day is one of my favorite bits in a Hong movie.
A film touched by grace. Seeing the beauty of the world in the dissonant chords of a guitar lullaby, in a greasy face, or in an uncontrollable laughter. Learning to see and say things directly, for they are just in front of us: reflecting upon the past that may not have been so cheerful, conscious of the dying future, living in the all-cosuming present, the only thing that actually is. The most generous and miraculous film of the year.
As a relative Hong Sang-soo novice, I'll say that this movie required a certain acclimation period for me, because its style goes against so much of what I've been conditioned to think a "well-made movie" looks like. It's shot on less-than-state-of-the-art digital video, replete with blown-out backgrounds and audio that muffles when the wind hits the mic. Hong parks his camera for long, long dialogue scenes that encompass information that a screenwriting manual would tell you to cut. If two people sit down for dinner, you will sit with them for the duration, which includes listening to them order. His style is not slapdash or ill-considered, but it is a challenge.
That said, a lot of what is immediately apparent about Hong's style…
En uno de los momentos más hermosos de esta extraordinaria película, Sangok, la actriz interpretada por Lee Hye-young, explica que en un momento de su vida de gran desesperación salió a dar un paseo y todo lo que vio le pareció tan formidable, aún en su vulgaridad, que no pudo pensar en otra cosa mas que en seguir viviendo. Comenta especificamente el encuentro con un obrero que llevaba el rostro sucio y cubierto de grasa que de tan bello hubiese querido lamerlo.
Esta película de Hong Sangsoo es ese rostro. Rodada en las condiciones más precarias que ha tenido nunca una película suya (ni una decena de localizaciones), con un video digital de una calidad paupérrima donde en ocasiones notas…
Hong Sang-soo's unique brand of artifice is just so enticing. His films are like little bubbles of the world, stuck in a small, structured, domestic realism, and yet quietly playful. In Front of Your Face is a straightforward film, though it has Hong's usual dual structures, this time with sisters, repetitive scenes, and a narrative shift midway through. It is a film of food, long talks, and even a little music. Hong only makes unassuming, incidental cinema, which is why his films are so easy to watch. In Front of Your Face does gradually reveal some sadness however, but it tries to stay positive. It is about final choices and contrasting them with the life you had. It is a film of drunken promises, which are to be broken and laughed at. Most importantly though, it's a film about learning to appreciate what is in front of your face.
NOTEBOOK: Did you intentionally just quote Diary of a Country Priest? “Everything is grace.”
HONG: Oh, yeah, yeah. Maybe one of the reasons I liked that film when I saw it for the first time was because of that dialogue at the end. It touches me deeply. It’s what I keep saying to myself every day.
NOTEBOOK: It is all grace.
HONG: Everything. Whether we acknowledge it, it is grace.
NOTEBOOK: This is a dumb and obvious question, but is that what your characters are seeking?
HONG: Kim Min-hee’s character [in On the Beach at Night Alone] says something about this, about praying to God. Except for that character, I’ve never written someone who says this, my attitude, directly. I was being careful. But now I’ve changed, I guess, a little bit. With Kim Min-hee I thought, “Maybe it’s okay to say these things directly.”
A film about dying and forgiving and flirting and getting drunk and making promises you can't keep and then waking up and realizing it was always going to be disappointing. Grace is something that can always be more easily achieved when inebriated, but that doesn't mean it's not there.
Lots of filmmakers were forced to change up their methods in order to keep working during the Covid-19 lockdown. But Hong Sangsoo is one from whom you might not expect any dramatic changes, since most of his films are intimate talkfests built around just a handful of actors. In Front of Your Face is very recognizably a Hong film. The very first shot features a close-up of a sleeping woman, Jeongok (Cho Yunhee), with the frame pierced ever so delicately by a loving hand, that of her older sister Sangok (Lee Hyeyoung). Then, in Hong's signature, understated manner, the image zooms out and gently pans to the right, to show us the two women together, and then Sangok in…
Alternate Ending review, in which I note that "What’s the name of the [Hong Sang-soo film] in which all of the characters work in the film industry and drink way too much soju and embark upon ill-advised romances and get mired in lengthy, deeply awkward conversations and the movie’s second half kinda sorta recapitulates its first half?” is a seemingly very specific question that in fact has many, many possible answers. And then lay out why it's exciting that this film isn't one of them. My favorite Hong remains Right Now, Wrong Then, but this is a very close second.
(Cracks me up that every time I think he's made a capital-G Great film, the ultra-stans invariably go, "No, that one's not so great, rare whiff for Hong here.")
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