Watch a clip from Hong Sang-soo’s Berlin-bound… | Little White Lies

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Watch a clip from Hong Sang-soo’s Berlin-bound Introduction

17 Feb 2021

Words by Charles Bramesco

Elderly man in casual clothing sitting on a bench outdoors surrounded by trees and greenery.
Elderly man in casual clothing sitting on a bench outdoors surrounded by trees and greenery.
A young actor works on his rela­tion­ships with his father and girl­friend in the Kore­an master’s newest feature.

Anoth­er year, anoth­er film from Korea’s most pro­lif­ic titan of the glob­al art­house, Hong Sang-soo. He cranks fea­tures out at a quick­er clip than pret­ty much any­one in his league, though that’ll hap­pen when they’re all around 70 min­utes long and con­sist of lit­tle more than peo­ple hav­ing con­ver­sa­tions preg­nant with per­son­al sig­nif­i­cance in ordi­nary interiors.

His lat­est is Intro­duc­tion, a svelte six­ty-six-minute dra­ma typ­i­cal of the writer-director’s min­i­mal­ist style. Its pre­mière will return Hong to the Berli­nale, the same fes­ti­val at which he pre­miered his last film (2020’s The Woman Who Ran) and today brings the first clip in advance of the offi­cial debut in the first week of March.

The wisps of plot fol­low the actor Young­ho, who goes to see his doc­tor father. While his dad’s busy with some patients, Young­ho catch­es up with his girl­friend Juwon, his moth­er, and his pal Jeong­soo; they have airy con­ver­sa­tions about his lack of direc­tion and oth­er pet themes of the Hong filmography.

In the scene below, Young­ho has trav­eled to Berlin to sur­prise Juwon, who’s study­ing in the city. He con­tem­plates join­ing her there at uni­ver­si­ty, and while she ini­tial­ly doesn’t seem all that into it, she warms up to the idea as Young­ho real­izes he could put his dad’s mon­ey to good use with a move to Ger­many. Con­duct­ed in a sin­gle sta­t­ic shot stretch­ing over two min­utes, it’s a bite-sized dose of the sig­na­ture Hong tech­nique, a holdover treat for his fans jonesing after a year’s wait.

Intro­duc­tion will screen in Com­pe­ti­tion in Berlin next month, mak­ing the set­ting of that charged con­ver­sa­tion all the more apro­pos. In a year some­what light on big names as major film­mak­ers hold their work for a post-pan­dem­ic world, he’s one of the true heavy­weights grac­ing this year’s lineup.

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