Film Reviews

What comes to mind when you think of a Hong Sang Soo film? By the Stream (2024)—Hong's second feature film this year and the thirty-second in his filmography—ticks all the boxes: an ensemble of artists and art students, complicated sexual and romantic relationships, daily consumption of soju, and sudden bursts of emotions following drunkenness. Of course, the main characters are played by Hong’s regular troupe (Kim Min Hee, Kwon Hae Hyo, etc.). However, Hong does not merely repeat the answers he offered in his previous films. Instead, this film feels like a refined manifesto, refined from The Novelist's Film (2022) and In Water (2023).

The film begins with Si Eon, a once-famous actor and director, visiting his niece, Jeon Im, a textile artist and university lecturer. Si Eon is tasked with directing a 10-minute sketch starring Jeon Im’s students for the university’s theatre festival because the original student director had to drop out after dating three of the actresses. Si Eon also meets Prof. Jeong, an influential figure in the department and a long-time admirer of him, who is close to Jeon Im. Much of the film centres on Si Eon and Jeon Im dealing with the theatre festival or on scenes of Si Eon, Jeon Im, and Prof. Jeong eating nice food and drinking soju.

During the course of the film, the artists face various struggles outside their art. Si Eon is on hiatus due to a scandal that is never fully explained; the student director loses his job due to his complicated romantic entanglements; and Si Eon’s play is lambasted by the audience, leading to Prof. Jeong and Jeon Im being summoned by the university president over its political undertones (it is implied that the play was interpreted as anti-feminist by a predominantly female audience at the women’s university). These events echo Hong’s real-life scandal and incidents portrayed in his earlier films. Although Hong continues to make films in Korea, he is virtually a persona non grata (like Si Eon) to much of the Korean public, known for holding celebrities to exacting moral standards. The student director is reminiscent of other libidinous directors heavily featured in Hong’s oeuvre (e.g. Jung Rae in Woman on the Beach (2006), Seong Jun in The Day He Arrives (2011), and so many others). This may be a stretch, but the criticism of the play hints at the anti-Hong sentiment in Korea, led by female audiences who abhor his affair.

However, this film departs from Hong’s earlier works, where the protagonist often undergoes such incidents, sometimes instigating them. Peculiarly, each day in the film begins with a long shot of Jeon Im and ends when she leaves the scene. She is a composed figure, always one step removed from the turmoil, or even actively withdrawing from them to return to her studio and work. As a result, we do not witness certain spicy events, such as the student director abruptly proposing marriage to one of his romantic interests, Si Eon confronting the student director one-on-one, or Si Eon and Prof. Jeong having sex. Each of these scenes would have constituted a pivotal incident in Hong's previous films. By centring the film on Jeon Im instead of Si Eon and thereby omitting such scenes, Hong seems to present a new outlook on life he has embraced.

This shift is epitomised by Jeon Im’s approach to art in this hostile world. For her, art has become her vocation in its literal meaning, following a mysterious revelation. This gives her the courage to proceed without doubt despite any obstacles she encounters. Yet, she is not an artist who escapes into an imaginary world; her works are grounded in real-world objects, and the use of textiles as her medium adds tangibility to her art. She keenly observes flowing water, much as she observes the fleeting dramas of the world, in contrast to the older artist Si Eon, who seeks solace in Prof. Jeong as a form of escape.

The improvised poetry scene fits awkwardly into this context. Si Eon asks the student actors to compose poems about the person they want to be. Perhaps realistically, the unprepared students deliver underwhelming and somewhat hackneyed verses. To make matters worse, the students all burst into tears, again, realistic given that they are drunk, but one that jars with Jeon Im’s calm presence. Overall, this segment feels like a remnant of Hong’s signature emotional drinking scenes executed less impressively.

Nevertheless, By the Stream successfully showcases the new direction of Hong Sang Soo to an audience that still associates him only with drunk and horny artists. Hong’s core understanding of the world remains unchanged: when Jeon Im reaches the source of the flowing water at the end, she declares that there is nothing. As in other films of his, the world is not governed by universal truths but shaped by the actualisations of coincidences. Jeon Im chooses to happily embrace that fact. I eagerly await Hong’s answer to what lies ahead.