En otro país

Apparently am in the minority here, but this is my 10th Hong Sang-Soo film, and it actually rates in the top 5. As a coherent narrative, it definitely isn't the best. But as an art film that can be experienced that cleverly overlaps 3 stories while incorporating meta fiction elements, ironic repetition, and creatively blurring the line between fact and fiction, "In Another Country" excels. Purposely nonlinear with its storytelling, this is the sorta film one could rewatch to catch the double meanings, hidden messages, and "spot the differences" between the always talented Isabelle Huppert as Anne #A, #B, + #C, in their respective stories. Same name, same actress, different characters? Or are they?

Isabelle Huppert is having a great time making movies, taking on any kind of oddity they push at her. It's a bit rough on her fans, who get stuck with items like this and CACTUS but I suppose you take the rough with the smooth.

A Korean girl facing a crisis sets down to write a script in which Huppert appears as "the French Woman." Now you can't complain about mis-casting. Complete with the sound of typing (thank you Twilight Zone) she puts our heroine into three different scenarios set in the so nice timber beach front home, where she encounters the same characters in different arrangements, looking for a light house, losing an umbrella and getting amorously involved with the men. Kind of precious.

The material is presented in sharp, subdued colour with minimal editing. It's not worth it's star's time or the viewer's.

Maybe the point of the three stories all featuring a French woman (Isabelle Huppert), a lifeguard (Yoo Jun-sang), and some others in a seaside town in Korea is to say that in matters of love, our lives are all just variations on a theme. There is a randomness to how we collide off of one another, but there are also patterns in what emerges, and an underlying commonality. Or maybe that was just me trying to find a connection in what Hong Sang-soo presented.

Regardless, the little cultural differences and communication problems that stem from being "in another country" are mirrored in the struggles between romantic partners, e.g. The jealousies, infidelities, and yearning for others. There are lots of powerful emotions here, but they are presented in a subdued manner, with a quiet humanity. It's a pleasant enough film, but the stories weren't all that gripping, feeling more like doodling than finished efforts to me. I certainly thought about them for awhile afterwards though, and maybe on another night I would have given it a higher rating.

The Korean film Da-reun na-ra-e-seo (2012) was shown in the U. S. with the title In Another Country. It was was written and directed by Hong Sang-soo.

Isabelle Huppert portrays three different women, all of whom are named Anne. The movie (well, movies) are set in a small seaside resort.

The first Anne is a famous French filmmaker visiting an equally famous Korean filmmaker and his pregnant wife. The problem is that the husband is attracted to Huppert.

The second Anne is the wife of a wealthy industrialist. She is here to meet her lover, who is a filmmaker.

The third Anne is a newly-divorced woman who comes to the resort with an older woman friend.

The segments sometimes move in the the same direction. For example, she sets out with a young woman to go shopping, but the next scene always is Anne alone on a barren road.

Anne is always looking for a lighthouse, which is a tourist attraction. Joon-Sang Yoo is a very muscular lifeguard that appears in all the segments. He should know the location of the lighthouse, but he doesn't.

Huppert was born to play these roles. She is one of the great actors of our generation and she is believable as all three women. It's worth watching the movie just to see her act.

Unfortunately, I'm in the minority about this film, because it has an anemic IMDb rating of 6.4. I don't like to recommend movies that have a low IMDb rating, but I definitely will make an exception in this case. I thought it was a wonderful movie, and rated it 9.

This isn't a film. Rather, it's a collection of rather uninteresting vignettes, all of them focused around an unpleasantly self-centred middle-aged Frenchwoman who happens to be visiting South Korea. Unfortunately, this means we're back in the world of low-budget filmmaker Hong Sang-Soo, whose previous films THE DAY HE ARRIVES and OKI'S MOVIE I've watched. I didn't like either of them, finding them pretentious, but this is even worse.

There's no story here whatsoever, just a trio of three short stories that are almost identical stylistically. Isabelle Huppert's protagonist is one of the most uninspiring I've seen in film, a woman who wanders around looking for self-gratification, boozing and smoking all the while. It becomes tiring after about five minutes. The characters she meets are equally self-absorbed, although the twist is that as she's foreign we have to put up with a ton of poorly-spoken English dialogue instead of the usual Korean language. Inevitably the shadows of sex, adultery, and alcoholism raise their head, but it's all so, well, pointless, I can't believe they bothered to make it.