‘Introduction’ Three hugs, a wave and …

Brief information about the by director Hong Sang-soo have already been introduced in No. Originally, an interview with director Hong Sang-soo should have been posted prior to release, but this time, unfortunately, for unavoidable reasons, we were unable to post an interview on . As for self-consolation, in fact, the interview with director Hong Sang-soo is not very useful for understanding the film. It has to do with the quality of the film and that of the director. As wary as possible of misinterpreting the meaning, I have no choice but to offer short answers or answers that seem meaningless.

Nonetheless, we are curious about his answers. This is because it is not a tool for understanding the film, but itself contains another mystery. In this sense, Hong Sang-soo’s response is close to another form of creation. After that, even though it is late, I promise in advance that I will deliver director Hong Sang-soo’s voice in any form, and this time I will give you a brief introduction to . The discovery of all of the ‘now’ in the world hesitating at a new door. Director Hong Sang-soo has entered a new stage as if it were natural.

There are spoilers for the film.

“You might think so. “I don’t remember exactly what happened back then.” “I thought it was supposed to be like this.” There are two difficult situations when it comes to interviewing a director. One is to find out the reason later, rather than remembering and conveying the situation during the shoot. In this case, the answer is often added as an excuse rather than an explanation. Therefore, the more precise and precise the answer, the more likely it is to interfere with the comprehension of the film.

The other is a case where the explanation itself is recognized as impossible. If you try to break the piece of film down into words, the meanings will be distorted and transformed, so the answers you can give are inevitably limited. The interview with director Hong Sang-soo falls into the latter category. This is the reason why he has no choice but to use expressions such as depth, lingering sound and mystery submerged under a compressed surface like a short poem.

Hong Sang-soo’s scenes are the sum of reactions to a given situation as well as to time. It’s not just because of the unique working method that faces the stage every morning and builds the stage with inspiration. Most narrative films open the way to the destination of the story, the form. In contrast, in Hong Sang-soo’s films, a story is simply the result of a form. It is difficult to say that this is a coincidence product, but this result is non-reproducible and cannot be repeated twice. At the same time, as director Hong Sang-soo always reveals in his interviews, these scenes are things that should have been there in the first place, “scenes that[le film]wanted or occurred spontaneously “.

Is it abstract? Take this movie for example. In the first part, Yeong-ho (Shin Seok-ho) visits an oriental medicine clinic to meet his father, who is an oriental doctor. After waiting a while, it suddenly snows outside and the movie accepts it as if it’s waiting for this scene. The snow scene was not necessary here. It must have snowed one day while filming, and the weather was filmed seamlessly and became a scene in a movie. Part 1 would have been possible without the snow, but it snowed like fate, and the scene in its current form was over. Is it a coincidence? Is it inevitable? The scene does not require snow, but through the snowy weather it reveals an unprecedented mystery.

The important thing here is not “the image of the falling snow”. How the camera captures the snowy weather and turns it into part of the film is the mystery of the process. In Hong Sang-soo’s film, the link between each scene is both totally free and totally fixed. The opposite is true. Images captured in a movie cannot be replaced with other scenes. The moment another scene enters, the movie becomes a different movie. It is therefore a completely frozen scene, and therefore completely free. If the explanation of this tedious process is shortened, as director Hong Sang-soo reveals, it becomes “scenes that (the film) intended or that occurred spontaneously.”

I believe that Hong Sang-soo’s films are a kind of creation that ends when the audience accepts it, and when the audience gives it meaning. Until then, the significance of these mysterious scenes has yet to be decided. Much like the principle of uncertainty in quantum mechanics, beings only exist when you observe them. Therefore, this article is not a commentary on . All I can do here is convey just one point of view from my point of view.

Answers which retrace the stages of the film as it is. In recent years, Hong Sang-soo’s films seem to become more and more transparent. Even when I looked (2016), I felt the desire to add words and designate meanings. (2019), although transparent, attempted to capture its mysterious structure. When it comes to, all these wills are erased like a black and white screen in a film. There are only the three hugs engraved in the middle of the screen, the serious. Here I will briefly mention the road to the three hugs.

* This article is based on <'Introduction' ② Trois câlins, une vague et… > leads to