Actor Seoung-mo (Shin Seok-ho) has no idea what kind of movie he’s going to direct. All he knows is that he’s going to direct one. That part is certain. Meandering across South Korea’s gorgeous Jeju Island with fellow actor Nam-hee (Kim Seung-yun) and camera operator Sang-guk (Ha Seong-guk) in tow, first-time filmmaker Seoung-mo awaits inspiration as the trio ambles around the island’s beaches. Tourists frolic in the sand, locals go about their daily routines, the wake drifts in and out of the shore. Seoung-mo observes it all, but these sights don’t make the ideas swirling around in his head any clearer. One could say he’s in too deep.
The three-person film crew blocks potential shots, rehearses possible dialogue, hashes out improvised scenes, and fills the downtime with plenty of food and drink. (Would it even be a Hong Sang-soo production without food and drink?) After a couple of long days with no progress to show for their efforts, the others aren’t wrong to ask why Seoung-mo wishes to direct in the first place. Is it money? Status? Fame? No, Seoung-mo explains. He wants the honor. As is the case with the most metatextual Hong films of late, it’s an answer that clarifies both the reality and the fiction between the lines of seemingly innocuous discussions.
Shot in digital and in full color, writer-director-producer-cinematographer-editor-composer Hong turns a filmmaker’s worst nightmare into an inspired artistic choice: in water is presented almost entirely out of focus. This isn’t a comment on the plot or the characters. The picture is quite literally blurry for much of the film’s 62-minute runtime. It’s a representation of Seoung-mo’s unfocused approach, to be sure. On a deeper level, however, it’s also a glimpse at what Hong might be seeing with his own two eyes these days.
First revealed in a 2009 interview and last hinted at in his film Introduction (2021), Hong has known that he is gradually losing his eyesight as far back as his third feature. (in water is his 29th.) In the 20-plus years since this discovery while working on Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (2000), the director’s vision has presumably degraded to a noticeable degree. Traditionally coy on personal subjects beyond what is seen in the subtext of his ever-growing, rapidly expanding filmography, it’s futile to expect Hong to give audiences an explicit update on his visual acuity. And yet, who would need one, given a film like in water?
Much like the sea itself, looking out at the surface of in water can’t compare to the experience of plunging underneath the waves. At first glance, the film may seem like a lesser, more modest work — something more in line with his 2000s output than his remarkable 2020s efforts beginning with The Woman Who Ran (2020) and stretching through Walk Up (2022). On closer inspection, however, in water reveals itself to be one of the most vulnerable, revealing, and radically unique features of Hong’s career. Don’t call it a gimmick: It’s a touching rumination on the very act of creative expression and the hurdles that impede the most basic desire to go out and make something.
American distributor Cinema Guild — the stateside home of more than a dozen Hong films, ranging from The Day He Arrives (2011) to this latest release — has paired in water with Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa’s 2023 short “The Daughters of Fire.” Packaged under the cheeky title “FIRE + WATER,” the nine-minute Costa works well when viewed in this order. It’s a similarly adventurous experiment in digital filmmaking, also concerned with suffering as told via song. Although it’s decidedly more proof-of-concept than a fully fleshed-out work in its own right, it stands strong as one half of an invigorating, innovative couplet.
In Water screens nightly with “The Daughters of Fire” at 7:00 p.m. on January 5 – 7 at the Webster University Film Series.
