In Another Country
The figure of the doppelgänger, a frequent motif in filmmaker Hong Sangsoo’s oeuvre, receives one of its most radical treatments in this breezy vacation comedy. Isabelle Huppert stars as three different women—a French filmmaker, a philanderer, and a divorcée. Across three discrete but overlapping stories, each visits a seaside resort town and encounters a Korean filmmaker (Kwon Hae-hyo), his pregnant wife (Moon So-ri), and an amorous lifeguard (Yoo Joon-sang). A structurally complex exercise in narrative repetition and a charming, lively comedy of misunderstanding and desire, In Another Country is one of the funniest and most surprising installments in Hong’s body of work. (2012, English, French, and Korean with English subtitles, 89 minutes)
followed by:
Claire's Camera
Filmmaker Hong Sangsoo’s 20th feature—one of his three films to premiere in 2017—is a light, sunny divertissement shot on the fly during the Cannes Film Festival. Set far from the red carpet, Claire’s Camera is a cautionary tale about mixing business with pleasure. A sales agent (Kim Minhee) is fired mid-festival for her “dishonesty,”which turns out to be code for sleeping with a director who’s also involved with her boss. The revelations emerge with the help of a French tourist named Claire (Isabelle Huppert), a detective of sorts who helps others see their situations more clearly. Kim and Huppert make for a delightful pair amid the kind of cross-cultural comedy that also defined Hong’s Huppert-starring In Another Country. (2017, English, French, and Korean with English subtitles, 69 minutes)
This program is part of our Tales of Cinema: The World of Hong Sangsoo series.