New York Film Festival 2022: THE NOVELIST’S FILM & WALK UP

Few filmmakers can rival the prolific output of Hong Sangsoo; nearly every film festival of note has at least one, if not two, new Hong features screening each year. The 2022 New York Film Festival is no different, with The Novelist’s Film, Hong’s 27th feature, and Walk Up, his 28th, both screening as part of the Main Slate. Both films have much for the average Hong enthusiast to love, including many recognizable members of his stock company of actors, black-and-white cinematography cranked sunshine-bright, and (of course) plenty of smoking, drinking, and talking about life. And indeed, while I may be more than a little biased (considering that Hong is one of my favorite living filmmakers), I found both films to be absolutely lovely — though it’s The Novelist’s Film that has the edge as one of my favorite films of the year.

The Novelist’s Film (Hong Sangsoo)

Like many Hong films before it (and also Walk Up after it), The Novelist’s Film begins with a meeting between people who have not seen each other for quite some time. Famed novelist Junhee (Lee Hyeyoung, so brilliant as the lead of Hong’s 25th feature, In Front of Your Face), has ventured outside of Seoul to visit a former colleague who has opened a bookstore there. After they spend some time catching up, Junhee visits a tower with a famous view, where she encounters another old acquaintance: a filmmaker (frequent Hong stand-in Kwon Haehyo) with whom a plan to adapt Junhee’s work for the screen fell through, accompanied by his wife.

As the trio leaves the tower to walk through a nearby park, they encounter Gilsoo (Hong’s partner and muse, Kim Minhee), a movie star who has recently stepped away from her acting career despite being very successful. The filmmaker cannot understand why she’d do this, claiming “it’s a waste” of her considerable talents. That’s when an incensed Junhee steps in, declaring that it’s not up to others to decide whether Gilsoo is wasting her life and career. (Considering that Kim has not acted in a non-Hong film since The Handmaiden, her career turned upside-down by her affair with the married Hong, one cannot help but read something personal into the film’s fiery defense of Gilsoo’s choices.)

Needless to say, this moment cements an immediate bond between the two women, who share a hunger for authenticity in both life and work. Junhee has been experiencing writer’s block, but in meeting Gilsoo, she’s inspired to channel her creativity into a new medium: a short film, starring Gilsoo and her sculptor husband, shot and edited by Gilsoo’s film student nephew. And despite not being terribly interested in acting anymore, Gilsoo is similarly inspired by Junhee and intrigued by the idea of such a personal project.

As they go for lunch, then drinks at a friend’s (coincidentally, the very same bookseller who Junhee met earlier) the makgeolli flows, and the connection between Junhee and Gilsoo grows; their chance meeting feels somehow fated to have happened in order to bring this collaboration to life. In the end, The Novelist’s Film shows us, people who are meant to create (like Hong himself) will find some way to do so even when in their deepest and darkest lulls; they just need some spark of inspiration to light the way.

Hong serves in his usual multitude of roles on The Novelist’s Film — director, writer, producer, cinematographer, composer, editor. The cinematography is particularly beautiful; it’s shot in the heavily exposed black-and-white that Hong seems to favor as of late, where the whites are so bright that they practically glow. This gives The Novelist’s Film a warm aesthetic that matches the story, as though every aspect of the film is drenched in sunlight.

At the center of The Novelist’s Film are the two women who have given us some of the most powerful performances in Hong’s filmography, doing once again what they do best. Lee’s almost imperious confidence as Junhee — she seems incapable of self-doubt — is balanced by Kim’s softer, sensitive portrayal of Gilsoo. A recurring joke earlier in the film is the question of charisma; the filmmaker tells Junhee she has it, who in turn tells Gilsoo she has it. Well, it’s definitely something neither Lee nor Kim is lacking. Watching them talk together made me wish I too had a seat at the table to share my thoughts and hear theirs in return.

The much-discussed film directed by Junhee happens, though we don’t actually get to see it. What we do see at the end of the film are some loose, casual scenes of Kim gathering flowers into a rustic bouquet. As she walks towards the camera, she hums a bridal march. “I love you,” Hong’s voice behind the camera tells her. “I love you,” she says. Considering that Hong’s wife has not granted him a divorce, this scene may be the only wedding that these two ever have, and as such, feels almost painfully intimate – and also incredibly beautiful. These moments are rich with the emotional authenticity that Junhee speaks of wanting in her film.

The Novelist’s Film pays stunning tribute to Kim’s ability to inspire, both as the character of Gilsoo and as herself, and as such, feels particularly poignant. Whatever you think about the circumstances that led to their coupling, it’s clear to anyone who has watched their cinematic collaborations that Hong and Kim are creative soul mates; any film of his starring her (and those are becoming increasingly few and far between) has an emotional weight that some of Hong’s others lack. If Kim never decides to appear in front of the camera again…well, I won’t say it’s a waste, but I will say that The Novelist’s Film feels like a fitting one with which to bid farewell if she chooses to do so.

Walk Up (Hong Sangsoo)

Walk Up plays with time and narrative more than The Novelist’s Film; if the latter is a more emotionally rewarding film in its simplicity, the former is more intellectually rewarding in its complexity. Like The Novelist’s Film, it begins with a meeting: filmmaker Byungsoo (Kwon Haehyo, again) has brought his estranged daughter, Jeongsu (Park Miso), to meet an old acquaintance, Ms. Kim (Lee Hyeyoung, again), at the apartment building that Ms. Kim owns. Jeongsu is a former art student who has decided she wants to be an interior designer; Ms. Kim is successful in that field, and Byungsoo is hoping she’ll be able to give his daughter some advice.

Hong has previously experimented with repeating and tweaking the same events throughout a film’s narrative with great success; think Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, which shows a relationship playing out from both parties’ often-conflicting perspectives, or Tale of Cinema, which focuses on a man whose life events were the basis for a film, who then tries to recreate those events with the film’s lead actress with less-than-satisfying results. In Walk Up, we revisit Ms. Kim’s apartment building several times; whether these scenes show the progression of time, or alternative endings based on different choices Byungsoo could have made, remains somewhat vague…though because this is Hong, one is inclined to believe the latter.

When Byungsoo first revisits the building, he has a wine-soaked meal with Ms. Kim and the woman who owns a tiny restaurant on the second floor, Sunhee (Song Seonmi). There’s an obvious connection between Sunhee and Byungsoo, so it’s no surprise that when we next return to the building, Byungsoo has moved in with her — though their relationship is fraught with differences of opinion on everything from food to friends. But when we next see Byungsoo, he’s living in a different apartment — the one on the top floor, which Ms. Kim had offered to him in the film’s first segment — being nurtured by a different girlfriend, Jiyoung (Cho Yunhee).

Byungsoo’s relationships with all of the women in Walk Up are radically different, yet he remains the same throughout the film: an aging filmmaker whose career has stalled and whose health isn’t the greatest, but who is still virile enough to attract women who note that he is far more sexually active than they would have expected for a man of his age. Ms. Kim, on the other hand, evolves with each segment; as Byungsoo gradually moves up each floor in her apartment building, she becomes a more prickly and difficult person, the kind of landlady who will march into your apartment unannounced but still stall when it comes to fixing the leak in your roof.

Like The Novelist’s Film, Walk Up is shot in black and white and features many of the same actors who Hong has come to rely on. Kwon and Lee’s back-and-forth, while not quite on the level that it was in In Front of Your Face, remains a delight to witness, especially as Lee’s Ms. Kim grows more and more difficult and Kwon’s Byungsoo grows more and more frustrated with her. Is this the natural progression of someone who starts out trying to be polite and then gradually grows less and less concerned with what you think, or is each iteration of Ms. Kim a reflection of the different choices Byung-soo would have made to bring him to these various points? Hong lets us piece together the pieces of the puzzle ourselves, which makes the experience of watching Walk Up all the more rewarding. At the same time, I found it less satisfying than The Novelist’s Film, mostly because I was less emotionally invested in everyone involved. (Kim Minhee serves as production manager on Walk Up but does not appear on screen; if she had, perhaps I would feel differently.)

An engaging ouroboros of a film, Walk Up ends just as it begins: with Byungsoo smoking outside Ms. Kim’s building after bringing his daughter to meet her. We’ve seen what could happen to him, or what will happen to him, depending on what he does next. Whatever happens, one thing is for certain: I’ll be eagerly awaiting Hong’s next film, as usual.

What do you think? What are your favorite Hong Sangsoo movies? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Walk Up and The Novelist’s Film are screening as part of the Main Slate at the 2022 New York Film Festival. The Novelist’s Film opens at Film at Lincoln Center on October 28, 2022.