By the Stream

Perhaps due to the stage in his oeuvre, Hong Sang-soo's "By the Stream" has come at the wrong time for me. Whether I am experiencing Hong-fatigue or not - having now seen approximately half of his forty-odd works - this has a lot of the elements familiar in his films, but also lacked a little something that has made me want to watch twenty-or-so of his works in the first place.

Jeo-nim (Kim Min-hee) is an artist and lecturer at a university, where a group of students are in need following the expulsion of their drama teacher (Ha Seong-guk). She, therefore, calls on her famous actor uncle Si-eon (Kwon Hae-hyo) to help write and direct the students' skit as part of their studies.

When not working on the skit, Si-eon drinks with his niece and her colleague Jeong (Cho Yun-hee) as he laments the stage of his career that he is now at, and his previous days when a student. And then he drinks and laments some more.

Again, an ageing/elder actor/director/writer finds himself drunkenly considering his lot with a younger woman. While this has always been the way, this felt like one time too many. Working with what has become a familiar cast over recent works, "By the Stream" doesn't have enough to make it stand-out or be particularly memorable. It is a little too much of a Hong film for me.

And this is perfectly fine, and I didn't feel short-changed by what I had watched. But I was a little uninspired. What I have enjoyed most about his films is the honing-in on a particular idea and playing with it, within a short time frame. This is one of his longer works, at a time when he is less playful with format, and so this can, at times, drag.

Plot has never been an important element of his films, at least not in more recent times, and this was off-set by playing around with narrative structures, repeating scenarios and mixing the order. But these have reduced in recent times, as he has taken on more of a role as cinematographer, with the camera often staying rigidly still.

This livens as it goes, but the start is slow and a little directionless. While the scene is set, it could have done with some editing. The plot seems to be happening somewhere else, people exiting stage to the action, while we remain at the tables with the drinks. And while that has always been the case, I felt I wanted to follow those leaving the table this time.

If having come earlier in his career, with some shorter works following, I may have enjoyed this more. But this is perhaps a little bit too much more of the same, while missing some of the little nuisances that I so enjoyed.

To paraphrase Jeo-nim as she heads up the stream: 'There's nothing really there.'

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The English title "By the River" is quite misleading, the stream turns out to by a mere brook, or better a kind of canal, build for heavy rainfalls but not much to see in dry times. The same can be said about the film itself. The three protagonists don't carry much water either unless provoked by others. None of them seems to have strong feelings about anything or important aims in their life. They float around themselves as in a kind of dance. We hear a lot of small talk and asian politeness and it takes awhile till we hear what the story is all about. Sadly, the one really emotionally charged moment is soon over and we hear almost nothing of what follows up. Most of the time we see people eating and drinking, aspecially drinking. There is one play acted out with students in the film and that is a very good relection of the whole story. One is forced to have a lot of patience since there is only little development and not all questions do get answered.