The Novelist’s Film – first-look review

Over 27 fea­ture films made in about as many years, Hong Sang-soo’s style has become recog­nis­able, util­is­ing a famil­iar form that involves refin­ing an estab­lished work­ing method and iter­at­ing on ideas he is inter­est­ed in.

For fans of Hong’s sen­si­bil­i­ty, this famil­iar­i­ty is not just com­fort­able but plea­sur­able, like liv­ing in the same home for an extend­ed peri­od and see­ing how the mood of a room can be altered by vari­a­tions in light and new fur­ni­ture arrange­ments. The pro­lif­ic film­mak­er has always seemed eager to test out new sce­nar­ios, set­tings, and actor com­bi­na­tions. With The Novelist’s Film how­ev­er, a film that is arguably more per­son­al and self-inter­roga­to­ry than his always self-reflex­ive work has ever been, Hong seems to be trou­bled by anx­i­eties around artis­tic stagnation.

The sto­ry in The Novelist’s Film is sim­ple. Nov­el­ist Jun­hee (Lee Hyey­oung) catch­es up with Sewon (Seo Youngh­wa), an old friend, before bump­ing into film­mak­er Hyo­jin (Kwon Hae­hyo), who then intro­duces her to Kil­soo (Kim Min­hee), an actress who is con­sid­er­ing retire­ment. After express­ing their mutu­al appre­ci­a­tion, these two new friends decide to make a short film togeth­er and the rest of the film is dom­i­nat­ed by dis­cus­sions about art’s func­tion in society.

Kil­soo then brings Jun­hee to an impromp­tu drinks event she is invit­ed to, only to learn that it is actu­al­ly being host­ed by Sewon, whose guest is Man­soo (Ki Joobong), a poet with whom Jun­hee shares a his­to­ry. The guests then all talk togeth­er about the film, and about their frus­tra­tions with cre­ativ­i­ty, vis­i­bil­i­ty, and artis­tic fulfilment.

As the time pass­es, The Novelist’s Film starts to feel increas­ing­ly inter­est­ing­ly meta­tex­tu­al. When Jun­hee dis­cuss­es her writer’s block and describes her form of writ­ing, her work sounds sim­i­lar in style to Hong’s film­mak­ing. Feel­ing that her writ­ing has become exag­ger­at­ed and pre­dictable, and that she often ends up get­ting stuck ​“inflat­ing small things into some­thing mean­ing­ful”, she says that she views film­mak­ing as a chance to cre­ate some­thing more intu­itive. Kil­soo asks what the film’s plot will be and Jun­hee says the ​“sto­ry is not so important”.

In an ear­li­er scene, Hyo­jin describes film­mak­ing not as a craft but instead as a ​“com­pul­sion.” In some scenes, it seems like Hong could be using these con­ver­sa­tions to express frus­tra­tion at the lim­its of his film­mak­ing process, whilst in oth­ers they read more like affir­ma­tions of the con­tin­u­al sat­is­fac­tion he draws from his com­mit­ment to his method.

Up until an unex­pect­ed end­ing which osten­si­bly breaks the fourth wall, the form of The Novelist’s Film is most­ly non-inva­sive, con­sist­ing large­ly of long takes fea­tur­ing three or more char­ac­ters all crammed with­in a medi­um shot image punc­tu­at­ed by the zooms that have been the director’s sig­na­ture gesture.

Appear­ing as a film-with­in-the-film, the end­ing scene is sur­pris­ing, because with it, The Novelist’s Film, which had until this point seemed gen­tle but still some­what angst-rid­den, starts to feel like one of the director’s sweet­est films, reg­is­ter­ing ulti­mate­ly as a touch­ing­ly sin­cere trib­ute to his life in film­mak­ing, and to love dis­cov­ered through art-making.

Per­haps Hong will con­tin­ue to find sat­is­fac­tion pro­duc­ing films using his famil­iar phi­los­o­phy and method­ol­o­gy, but what seems most excit­ing is the pos­si­bil­i­ty that with this film the direc­tor may be sig­nalling that wants to try some­thing new alto­geth­er. Maybe Hong Sang-soo’s next film could be his first documentary?

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