Event

Hotel by the River

Fri Apr 26: 7.30pm
Sat Apr 27: 4.00pm, 7.30pm
Sun Apr 28: 4.00pm, 7.00pm

Hong Sang-soo
South Korea
2018
1h 36m

About
** Best Actor prize (Ki Joobong) at the Locarno Film Festival; official selection of TIFF and NYFF! **

Younghwan (Ki Joobong), an aging poet, summons his two estranged sons (Kwon Haehyo and Yu Junsang) to a solitary hotel beside the Han River because he feels his death is near. While waiting for them to arrive, he meets two women (Kim Minhee and Song Seonmi) out walking in the new-fallen snow and is struck by their angelic beauty. But they have come to the hotel to do some healing of their own. As Younghwan moves between the women and his bickering sons, he also moves between his two minds: one that walks on the street and the other that communes with the eternal.

Shooting in gauzy black-and-white with a strikingly untethered hand-held camera, Korean master Hong Sangsoo interweaves the various dramas of his characters in a quiet, straightforward way. But small coincidences and privileged moments combine to create a powerful meditation on family and death, one of the most affecting films in Hongs oeuvre.

All photos on this page and description courtesy of Cinema Guild. Click here for photo credits.

A pleasing shuffle, spiked with bittersweet humor and even a gentle, surprising hint of sentimentality. Guy Lodge, Variety

Never less than beautiful. Jordan Cronk, Cinema Scope