By the River , Hong Sang-soo’s 32nd feature, opens as many of his previous 31 films have, with a polite encounter between two people who know each other well—not as strangers or familiar as they once were. Temporary pleasantries are exchanged, before one says to the other, “You haven’t changed at all.” It’s a premature observation, of course: the action that follows, as it is, shows either how much the two have changed, or how much they’ve forgotten along the way. This subtle comedy stands apart from Hong’s other similar films in its subtle autumnal coolness and blush-color palette, welcoming the director’s steadfast fans like a gentle but reluctant hug.
The prolific South Korean director’s second feature of 2024, which will premiere in the Locarno Film Festival’s official competition, after Berlinale winner Isabelle Huppert’s The Needs of a Traveler, is likely to be the less widely seen of the two. Both are stilted and indirect in narrative even by the standards of a director for whom “silent and indirect” is the default, but By the River is more sprawling and elusive as a character study—too much, probably, to win over many arthouse fans. Still, loyalists will be pleased by the film’s refreshing romantic streak and the light, graceful performances by Hong Kwon Hae-hyo and Kim Mi-hee, both of whom play characters strangely in search of themselves.
It’s Seon (Kwon), a once-respected actor turned bookstore owner, who remarks to his niece Junim (Kim) that she hasn’t changed in that introductory scene. She can’t agree, and instead claims that her life has “suddenly gone awry.” She can’t even attempt to retort the cliché. There’s no clear explanation for Seon’s professional decline—it’s vaguely stated that he’s been critical of others, and “being attacked” in turn—but he acts with the bemused air of someone who’s used to keeping his head down. Junim, a shy, lonely art teacher at Seoul Women’s University, has been asked a favor more befitting of his former self: the university is holding its annual sitcom festival, and they want him to write and direct its department’s show.
In a fit of nostalgia—not just for his stage career, but also for his youthful participation in a similar competition—Si-yeon agrees, though he’s a little miffed to learn that he’s a fallback, as the original director was fired after he separately slept with three cast members. (It would be a stretch to call this low-stakes satire any kind of statement about cancel culture, but one can detect a sly nod to the Korean tabloid scandal that greeted his relationship with Kim—his partner and now production manager—several years ago.) Jun-yeon doesn’t have to worry about her uncle making the same fatal mistake: When she introduces him to her boss (and Si-yeon’s longtime admirer) Jung (Cho Yun-hee), the mutual attraction is immediately apparent.
The film includes a number of boozy dining scenes, which are a staple of Hong’s style, as she invites Jung-seon to lunch at her favorite snake restaurant, followed by more lunch and dinner dates, with Jun-im playing the increasingly aggressive and passive third wheel. Few filmmakers handle the table dynamics with such finesse, with the characters’ intimacies and animosities charted through what they eat (does seafood porridge signal the beginning or end of a courtship?), how they eat it, and, most importantly, their choice of beverage—which ranges from carefully groomed wine to tongue-smoothing liqueurs. McGeely. Amid all this courtship of gourmands, sketching becomes largely secondary, as Jeonim—a reclusive woman who tends to sketch idle beside local streams and sleep outside even in the cold autumn weather—withdraws into herself.
But even that description makes By the River seem more complex than it appears, as Hong’s narrative relies on glances, pauses, and, in a new, somewhat cosmic twist, the phases of the moon. Sudden emotional outbursts come at unexpected points, as in a strangely moving scene when Siwon asks his quartet of young amateur actresses what they want to be, eliciting a range of earnest responses from “someone who truly loves” to “I will light the smallest lamp in the corner and protect it until I die.” This kind of tender sentimentality is unusual for Hong, a filmmaker whose basic form can border on self-parody in its consistency, but who allows for a flexible and ever-expanding array of moods, feelings, and flaws. Once again, Hong Sang-soo’s cinema has not changed at all, except in the ways it has.
