Die Frau, die rannte

I remember once generalising that any film that takes three hours to tell its story can't really be that good. Of course, such generalisations are rubbish; films are as good or as bad as they are whether they are ten minutes long or ten hours but there's something to be said for 'the miniature'. Little films can be beautifully polished gems and there are many small films of seventy-five minutes or so that you wish would go on forever.

Sang-soo Hong's "The Woman who Ran" is one such film. It's a conversation piece and there's a lot of small talk but it's so beautifully directed and acted you feel a sense of privilege just being with these people and these people are mostly female friends, or maybe just acquaintances, spending time together. When a man makes an early appearance, in a terrifically written and very funny single take sequence, he seems something of an intruder but Hong has so much fun with the scene he makes for a very welcome intruder. Mostly, however, it's just women talking about their lives, the men in their lives, their pasts and the pleasure or otherwise of eating meat and I wish it could have gone on for another hour or so.

A film in three sections, the first of which was easily 10 stars for me. Not really like anything I've ever seen, though the long takes, simple framing and meandering but always engaging dialogue is reminiscent of Rohmer. Also as in Rohmer, the abundant chatting gives the characters plenty of space to reveal the peculiarities and even little aggressions behind their seemingly bland, friendly normality. What's really new is how effortlessly, almost inexplicably funny all this is. I was just delighted by this part, by its originality, sheer, rare intelligence and perfect subtlety. Virtually nothing else in cinema now reaches these kinds of heights and, watching on Mubi as I was, where one is all too aware of this, I was feeling immensely relieved: 'Finally, something good.'

Then the second section starts, our 30s female protagonist visits another friend and a sinking feeling set in as I realised the comedy was gone and wasn't coming back. Was I just in it for the yuks? No, damnit, the funny part was also the smart part that had something to say, and the writing of which was like a delicate high wire act. After that, the film kneecaps itself with its own self-conscious, humourless pursuit of profundity, and where part 1 was subtle, the lunging at the depths is almost embarrassingly blunt.

It's like the film is dumping on the first section, on its own best part, telling us it was all just a bit of fun before we got to the serious, important, grown-up stuff. But look how banal that stuff is. Did we really need to meet the second friend to learn, yet again, that the single life is hard, or the third to learn, again yet again, that marriage is often no better? Did we, in particular, need the protagonist's repetition in each of these sections of the same info about her life with her husband? Yes, it arguably takes on new inflections each time, but the first was already weird and easily the most interesting, precisely because it was delivered as if it was perfectly fine.

It's all reminiscent of the lesson anyone learns if they take a decent improv class: those things you think you need to do to justify the piece are done out of insecurity and are bad.

This is a comfort movie. The older you get, the more sensible you become. It is funny looking back into the past when we meet the familiar faces. Friendships, aquaintances, love, marriage, divorce, separation, loneliness, happiness, sadness, betrayals, and all other things together patched up. Sometimes we do need the closure even if it doesnt bothers so much. Remember everything that we worry about now wont even be an issue few years down the line.

House visits, shared meals and dialogue, are themes that this movie is based on. It is a simple movie, with unique details, and yet with no so simple theme. It is a story of a young woman trying to find her own path, trying to define herself. She visits her friends and, maybe to keep it safe, tells the same suspiciously repetitive story of her life to each of them. She tries not to stray too far away from the society, however we know that she already did.

I really liked the finishing of scenes with zooming in on characters´faces, including a stray cat. Just a little touch to give the viewer even more intimate perspective, beyond the dialogue we hear. It seems to be an inaudible comment saying: which version of "I" are we: the one that we present to others, or the private one, known only by ourselves?

It is a good, simple, yet not boring movie. To me, it lacked a bit of surprise or complexity of plot for a higher score.

PS Korean fashion is really aesthetically pleasing.

Summary

A film that, with astonishing naturalness, based on the successive reunions of a woman with three friends, reflects how many times we must reconstruct the other based only on what he tells us about himself, how many times we are just what we formulate and we reveal about ourselves through our discourse, how many times we are our story.

Review:

Taking advantage of a business trip from her husband, Gam-hee (Kim Min-hee) goes out to visit some friends whom she has not seen for a long time.

Apparently it sounds small: basically Hong San-soo's film (Silver Bear for Best Director at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival) is made up of Gam-hee's three conversations with her friends. The question is everything that is at stake there and in what way.

In the first place, the incredible feeling of naturalness and even lightness that these reunions convey, filmed in long still shots nuanced with some zooms and other resources. Who are those women? What is its history? What do they propose? What is the link between them? We will learn about some things, but never as a grandiose or transcendent revelation and always under the sign of cordiality and a generally relaxed atmosphere. Other issues will remain in an interesting and suggestive out of the field such as stories taken up in media res. But this narrative distension will only be interrupted by the brief appearances of men on the scene as disruptive elements: they will be the ones who bring the uncomfortable moments, contrasting with the consensus of cordiality of the women. One of these interventions will acquire truly anthological humorous overtones.

It is also necessary to point out the relevance that the scenarios take, thanks to the framing and the dialogues. The feeling of immediacy, of being there, in those houses, is really palpable.

The woman who escapes is a film that with astonishing naturalness (hand in hand with the remarkable performances) reflects how many times we must reconstruct the other based only on what he tells us about himself, how many times we are just what we formulate and reveal of us through our discourse, in a story that from time to time even leads us to question everything we hear.