Filmography Hong Sang-Soo 2017 > 1998

2017 2015 2013 2012 2007 2005 HONG2004 2003 SANG-SOO INFINITE WORLDS POSSIBLE 2003 2004 2005 2007 2012 2013 2015 2017 LookingforReality‘Between“ theCracks’ Hong Sang-soo’sHolyVictoryTwice-told Drinking/No DrinkingDéjà Vu Infinite WorldsPossibleIdiocies. APoeticsoftheReal Forme, afilmisgoodifitmodifies mywayofthinking — — — — Jean-Michel Frodon— Emmanuel Burdeau,— Jean-PhilippeClaire Tessé Denis and Antoine— Thirion James Quandt— Joachim Lepastier James Quandt Roger Koza, Francisco FerreiraJacques and Aumont Julien Gester page 02 page 04 page 08 page 10 page 16 page 20 page 22 page 30 “ Let nothing be changed and all be different. ” of life’s connections and directions by crafting his Tales Of all the precepts that Robert Bresson has collected own take on another one of Bresson’s precepts: to in his Notes sur le cinématographe, this riff on an find without seeking. While the production of his often quoted historical maxim might be the one that first films was still based on a predefined screenplay, is par excellence applicable to the films of Hong Hong has increasingly refined his working method Sang-soo. Since discovering Bresson’s work trig- into a both intuitive and rigorous process of writing gered him to patiently carve out his own singular and filming. On the morning of each shooting day, path through the world of cinema, the South-Korean he writes out dialogue for the scenes he intends to filmmaker has continued to weave an ever subtly shoot, gives his cast time to memorize their lines, changing canvas of minute variations on the same determines camera angles, and then starts to shoot – narrative threads, playfully entwining themes of most often using statically framed long takes which ” love, desire, deception and regret. are only occasionally interrupted by abrupt zooms. The absence of a prefixed template and a receptiv- In Hong’s bittersweet sonatas, typically composed ity to what transiently comes into view allows for of multiple movements, repeated figures and modu- an unravelling of the concrete everyday into unex- lating motives, any relationship or situation is pected patterns of visual and narrative features, susceptible to variability: there can always be another opening up even the most trivial gestures and insig- version, another chance, another time. Some situa- nificant details to a web of indefinite resonances. tions present themselves as repetitions, while others accommodate a myriad of storylines that intertwine Stemming from a wariness of generalizations that or parallel each other. Every film contains multiple claim to be transcendent and all-encompassing, this stories, and is also rich in virtual ones, some yet to constant interplay between concrete presence – of be told, others perhaps already told before. Yet for all the people involved and the environments they the doubling, folding and mirroring in Hong’s films, occupy – and abstract construction is what, more what stands out from their narrative playfulness is than anything, propels Hong Sang-soo’s singu- hardly a display of virtuosity, but rather, as Jacques lar cinematic investigations into the dynamics of Aumont reminds us, a sense of idiocy. This idiocy repetition and difference. It is also what brings his does not only refer to the innocuous array of trite work, film after film, ever closer to the art of cinema misunderstandings, misfortunes and missteps that as it was once devised by Bresson: as a method of detract characters along divergent or crossing paths, discovery. but above all to the sense that everything seems to happen without reason, without a causal or rational This modest publication, compiled on the occa- order that determines the relations between charac- sion of the retrospective of Hong Sang-soo at the ters and their environment, between their present Brussels CINEMATEK (January 18 to February 25, and their future. In Hong’s films, there is no particu- 2018), aims to trace the development of Hong’s lar reason why things couldn’t fall into place differ- remarkable body of work through a collection ently: every relation entails a multiplicity of relations. of essays and interviews that were written and published between 2003 and 2017. Assembled here From his feature debut The Day a Pig Fell Into for the first time, they give an enlightening insight the Well (1996) to The Day After (2017), the latest into his cinematic universe, which keeps expand- Published on the occasion of the Hong Sang-soo retrospective in Brussels (January 18 to February 25, 2018), of four films he has released in the past year, Hong ing as a variety of variations on an aphorism that an initiative of CINEMATEK and Courtisane, in collaboration with the Korean Cultural Center in Brussels and Cinea. Sang-soo has continuously reinvented his explo- he himself has sketched out in one of his drawings: Program produced by Yura Kwon (Finecut) and Céline Brouwez (CINEMATEK). rations of the very arbitrariness and contingency infinite worlds are possible. Publication compiled, edited and published by Sabzian, Courtisane and CINEMATEK. Stoffel Debuysere, Courtisane & Gerard-Jan Claes, Sabzian 2003 2004 2005 2007 2012 2013 2015 2017 LookingforReality‘Between“ theCracks’ Hong Sang-soo’sHolyVictoryTwice-told Drinking/No DrinkingDéjà Vu Infinite WorldsPossibleIdiocies. APoeticsoftheReal Forme, afilmisgoodifitmodifies mywayofthinking — — — — Jean-Michel Frodon— Emmanuel Burdeau,— Jean-PhilippeClaire Tessé Denis and Antoine— Thirion James Quandt— Joachim Lepastier James Quandt Roger Koza, Francisco FerreiraJacques and Aumont Julien Gester page 02 page 04 page 08 page 10 page 16 page 20 page 22 page 30 “ Let nothing be changed and all be different. ” of life’s connections and directions by crafting his Tales Of all the precepts that Robert Bresson has collected own take on another one of Bresson’s precepts: to in his Notes sur le cinématographe, this riff on an find without seeking. While the production of his often quoted historical maxim might be the one that first films was still based on a predefined screenplay, is par excellence applicable to the films of Hong Hong has increasingly refined his working method Sang-soo. Since discovering Bresson’s work trig- into a both intuitive and rigorous process of writing gered him to patiently carve out his own singular and filming. On the morning of each shooting day, path through the world of cinema, the South-Korean he writes out dialogue for the scenes he intends to filmmaker has continued to weave an ever subtly shoot, gives his cast time to memorize their lines, changing canvas of minute variations on the same determines camera angles, and then starts to shoot – narrative threads, playfully entwining themes of most often using statically framed long takes which ” love, desire, deception and regret. are only occasionally interrupted by abrupt zooms. The absence of a prefixed template and a receptiv- In Hong’s bittersweet sonatas, typically composed ity to what transiently comes into view allows for of multiple movements, repeated figures and modu- an unravelling of the concrete everyday into unex- lating motives, any relationship or situation is pected patterns of visual and narrative features, susceptible to variability: there can always be another opening up even the most trivial gestures and insig- version, another chance, another time. Some situa- nificant details to a web of indefinite resonances. tions present themselves as repetitions, while others accommodate a myriad of storylines that intertwine Stemming from a wariness of generalizations that or parallel each other. Every film contains multiple claim to be transcendent and all-encompassing, this stories, and is also rich in virtual ones, some yet to constant interplay between concrete presence – of be told, others perhaps already told before. Yet for all the people involved and the environments they the doubling, folding and mirroring in Hong’s films, occupy – and abstract construction is what, more what stands out from their narrative playfulness is than anything, propels Hong Sang-soo’s singu- hardly a display of virtuosity, but rather, as Jacques lar cinematic investigations into the dynamics of Aumont reminds us, a sense of idiocy. This idiocy repetition and difference. It is also what brings his does not only refer to the innocuous array of trite work, film after film, ever closer to the art of cinema misunderstandings, misfortunes and missteps that as it was once devised by Bresson: as a method of detract characters along divergent or crossing paths, discovery. but above all to the sense that everything seems to happen without reason, without a causal or rational This modest publication, compiled on the occa- order that determines the relations between charac- sion of the retrospective of Hong Sang-soo at the ters and their environment, between their present Brussels CINEMATEK (January 18 to February 25, and their future. In Hong’s films, there is no particu- 2018), aims to trace the development of Hong’s lar reason why things couldn’t fall into place differ- remarkable body of work through a collection ently: every relation entails a multiplicity of relations. of essays and interviews that were written and published between 2003 and 2017. Assembled here From his feature debut The Day a Pig Fell Into for the first time, they give an enlightening insight the Well (1996) to The Day After (2017), the latest into his cinematic universe, which keeps expand- Published on the occasion of the Hong Sang-soo retrospective in Brussels (January 18 to February 25, 2018), of four films he has released in the past year, Hong ing as a variety of variations on an aphorism that an initiative of CINEMATEK and Courtisane, in collaboration with the Korean Cultural Center in Brussels and Cinea. Sang-soo has continuously reinvented his explo- he himself has sketched out in one of his drawings: Program produced by Yura Kwon (Finecut) and Céline Brouwez (CINEMATEK). rations of the very arbitrariness and contingency infinite worlds are possible. Publication compiled, edited and published by Sabzian, Courtisane and CINEMATEK.

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