While Hong Sang-soo’s comedies of manners are not meant to provoke a lot of laughter, they contain some robust dry humor and satire. After directing over thirty films, the skilled Korean director has certainly mastered his craft. He blends in minimalism while filming, using a tripod to keep the camera still, zooming in when absolutely necessary, and allows his actors to direct themselves through conversation. Isabelle Huppert has been a great fit in his previous projects including In Another Country and Claire’s Camera. She’s brought in as an outsider into a Korean city in Hong’s movies which helps enigma build, capturing the Korean audience in her presence. In their most recent project one of her movies, A Traveler’s Needs, they both establish a new narrative.
In both ‘In Another Country‘ and ‘Claire’s Camera‘, Huppert was rendered an outsider in all three contexts. In both the above movies Huppert was positioned as being the ‘Outlander‘ ‘in another country’ and ‘Claire’s Camera’ but here in this specific film, Iris seems to be the most puzzling character. We first average her in company with a pianist of young age, Yunee Cho and to her surprise she was teaching in the foreign language. The novel that everyone has used to greatly discard had Korean and French books. Instead, they were taught by being recorded and can only listen, when their language is English, the only option left is memorization. This indeed was a new style of learning and one of the students, Lee Hye-young, gave her a piece of her mind but to all of this ire said “I am just saying what is coot. I do not have ulterior plans.’ It seems like in this case the student is doing the ‘Irony’ trope. Lately, Iris was imitating herself as other people and also now, not only me but other Students too do feel that this was a Turn in terms of a Business Strategy. She lives with a twenty something year old girl in Seoul and that girl’s mother was not so happy about their relationship.
Yet, it is still possible for a student to leave the discussion with some residue of change, regardless of whether they grasp a word of French language. Hong is enthralled by the everyday patterns of life which start from different scenarios and situations. First, I will illustrate in detail how Iris approaches each of her students: she asks amateurs to play an instrument be it a piano or a guitar, then asks what kind of feelings the performer had while doing so. She exposes new aspects of the discussion by making the questions deeper and more incisive, and for some reason, she gets fairly close to the person, almost platonic imagine.
In most of the scenes, we see Hong’s signature patience and admiration for unfurling frames with single-shot, single-angle minor cinematography; and when people are talking, we get the sense that we are eavesdroppers who can only hear the fragments of a naturalistic conversation. Huppert rarely drops the pretense of never voicing the truth and lets us judge every vague smile or shoulder that has been brushed and is still unexplained. “Thank you for being my friend”, she proclaims while hugging her roommate’s friend and starts sobbing, is she really thanking them? Is she attempting to bury more compelling emotions?
One is not surprised since it is Isabelle Huppert even in a plain looking green cardigan with a straw hat but definitely radiant. Huppert’s co stars while muted in comparison, do little but shoos some of her lines; it is a fascinating contrast with her approach I must say as it lays the ground work for us to expect Machiavellian deviousness. Either she has no ulterior motive or she is the most cunning swindler that I’ve ever met. However, her motives could also just be the basic needs of a traveler, shelter, companionship and a reason to exist. All she is doing is making people who want something the most and fear something the most, overcoming those barriers for her through simple conversations.
(In response to the pianist’s question, she says that she would normally enjoy playing the piano, but it is only after being asked a few more times that she admits to feeling out of place in it.) These powerful moments are found in between the slow zooming shots of the friendly dog or in the random B-roll of the koi pond and they are simply the fleeting moments of tenderness enveloped in a kind of femme capricious acted upon unsuspecting students, passers by and even friends. She is practically non exists’ with no inner world except for the effects she produces in other people, but that is perfect in this film of Hong. These ways do not destroy the places around her these ways do not and in fact she comes to unsettle the balance of her surroundings. Her face recurs later, but in the extreme close up and thus contradicts the restrained format, the waist up camerawork which mark Hong’s work. In a film that is characterized by its muted emotions, this particular shot is the one that without subtlety hits us and calls for comprehension.
As cited in one of Hong’s works, the Traveler’s needs is something that concerning Hong is very much in constant change and is in great difficulty of being characterized. Its beats are quite relaxed, gradually introducing you to one profoundly mundane connection to another. At times, it is merely the consideration of allowing someone to hear a person badly play the recorder or piano (which was one of the few moments in the film where all were meant to laugh out loud) to another person. Or enabling a person to quote a poem from the stone wall in their language. This kind of a free spirit is a rest in bed for Huppert to act and, in case you can’t stand the slow tempo of Hong’s films, you may commence alongside her. Yet that feeling of drowsiness very often comes to his advantage, even in those that appear unevenly custom essay writing (the latter half is not as mesmerizing as the former).
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