Isabelle Huppert in a Foreign Country, for the Third Time

Isabelle Huppert in a Foreign Country, for the Third Time

on Sang-soo Hong's A Traveler's Needs

We usually say that cinemas compress and preserve time; but sometimes, in some unexpected way, they serve as witnesses to its passage. I'm referring to those "series" where the story extends throughout many years, and the characters inevitably age along with their actors/actresses. This is the primary beauty of Twin Peaks: The Return: in the familiar visages marked by the signs of time's passage yet still readily identifiable, and in voices that grow hoarse and tremulous with age, there exists an undeniable authenticity that transcends the fictional realm of cinema. Naturally, the erosion of time is ubiquitous in any cinematic work and is not confined to the brilliance of a singular artist; all a filmmaker must do is to acknowledge that force.

Undoubtedly, certain films that forge a more intimate connection with their actors are better equipped to reflect the passage of time. Take, for instance, Sang-soo Hong’s latest offering, A Traveler's Needs. Transitioning from a coastal village in 2012 (In Another Country) to the Cannes Film Festival in 2017 (Claire’s Camera), and now to an unidentified Korean town, Isabelle Huppert appears on the screen for the third time under Hong's direction, this time portraying Iris, a lone French woman in a foreign land. She wanders the streets with an inexplicable interest in the unfamiliar Korean characters carved everywhere, and occasionally teaches French in a way that resembles writing poetry. In contrast to Anne (in fact, three Annes) who is also alone “in another country”, and Claire who walks around with a Polaroid camera five years later, Iris has aged an additional seven years, her face adorned not with wrinkles but with a healthy thinness that accentuates with time. When such a character, embodying both an internationally acclaimed actress and a septuagenarian, shares room with a young Korean boy, their dynamic is rendered even more peculiar by Iris’s inquiry, "Do you love me as a friend?" The boy's affirmative response hardly surprises. Since 2020s, love affairs have largely vanished from Hong's oeuvre, neither serving as a central theme nor depicted overtly. Anne in In Another Country (2012) engages with each of the male characters in the film, reflecting Hong's fascination with chaotic emotional relationship at the time; Claire in Claire's Camera (2017) remains emotionally detached, yet serves as a spectator to another tale of infidelity and jealousy. However, in A Traveler's Needs (2024), a distinct rejection of worldly love emerges in its epilogue. This aligns with the thematic tendencies observed in his last year's works, In Water (2023) and In Our Day (2023), where love affairs are either veiled within enigmatic melodies or casually alluded to sex, as if it’s just another element among many.

Such a transition prompts one to ponder, whether Hong Sang-soo himself, or the “body” of his film, ages akin to Huppert's body that he filmed? Over the years, Hong's oeuvre has traced a Deleuzian trajectory, generating novel distinctions through the continual repetition of self, a paradigm that aptly chronicles the changes that time can bring upon an artist. In his acclaimed masterpieces, particularly those predating the Kim Min-hee era, character dynamics and dialogue are meticulously crafted, imbued with a sense of levity that captivates the audience. These films are deemed "exciting" by virtue of their dramatic intensity. However, in his recent productions, this intensity has deliberately waned; the humor and irony have muted, mirroring the melancholic undertones that permeate in the films. His usual techniques, such as narrative structure or intricate plot correspondences, no longer serve to engage and intrigue the viewer, but rather contribute to the film's dissolution, rendering it silent, hollow, and inscrutable. Does this signal a twilight of the creative spirit? Just as Huppert's characters have transitioned from the three distinct personas with specifically designed identities in In Another Country to a nearly anonymous, detached, and symbolic embodiment in A Traveler’s Needs, Hong's films have progressively veered towards abstraction and fragility. It's important to note that this isn't a disparaging comment, for while strength may sometimes be an inappropriate boast for a film, vulnerability becomes a testament to sincerity and humility -- In Front of Your Face (2021) and In Water are doubly moving due to these qualities.

Echoing the linguistic dynamics of In Another Country, Iris have to use English to communicate with the Korean characters, which is a foreign language for both the French and Korean. The rusty grammar, awkward accents and inevitable misunderstandings undermine dialogue at its most fundamental level, a trademark "awkwardness" characteristic of Hong's works. Yet, the discrepancy lies in the tonal shift: whereas the linguistic mismatch in In Another Country leans toward comedy, in A Traveler's Needs it creates an eerie atmosphere. Particularly in the second part of the film, there's a disconcerting and mechanical recurrence of phrases and laughter, reminiscent of the twisted and nightmarish dialogues in Lynch's Inland Empire (2006). When did the words in Hong's films become so vacuous as to evoke fear? Back to In Another Country or Claire's Camera, despite the characters often spouting nonsense, their words always revealed something to the audience in a way that the speaker didn't intend. Now the situation is reversed: the characters speak fervently, yet upon close inspection, their words lack substance and don’t convey anything. This isn't merely a result of cultural or linguistic disparities; rather, it underscores a fundamental rift that estranges individuals. The impossibility of communication emerges as a prevailing motif in Hong's recent works.

We can interpret A Traveler's Needs as a portrayal of the fundamental solitude of human beings. When Iris, after numerous futile communications, finds herself compelled to leave the boy's house and wander aimlessly through the streets, she assumes an almost Antonioni-esque persona, albeit older and fainter in comparison to Monica Vitti or Jeanne Moreau. Recall scenes from In Another Country where Huppert traverses the roads of the coastal village with an undeniable firmness in her stride, especially when she abruptly turns at an intersection and swiftly disappears from the frame. A similar shot appears in the opening scene of A Traveler's Needs, one of the most elegant in the entire film: as the girl plays the piano, Iris rises from the table and steps outside the house. Yet, perhaps due to her age, or due to the altered tone of Hong’s film, Huppert's gait has slowed slightly, moving quietly as if she were a ghost in the distance, accompanied by the strains of Liebestraum. Likewise, as she dips her feet into the babbling waters, seeking solace in the warmth of the world, a sigh escapes her lips -- a sound reminiscent of the "French woman abandoned by her husband" seated on a rock twelve years prior, yet the mood is markedly different. Frustrations in love no longer serves as the impetus for her wanderlust; instead, the traveler grapples with a much profounder quandary.

What do we see as we follow such a traveler “in another country”? A world utterly alien, desolate, and remote. Here, Sang-soo Hong elevates his attention to the environment, the landscape, and the minutest disturbances in space, as his recent works does, but to a much higher level. We see empty frames enveloped in the softness of defocus, leaves swaying in the breeze, distant mountains, fish gliding through the water, and fleeting glimpses of sunlight. When words wanes, it is these tiny, tangible details that repopulate the film. We see Iris seated on a bench, harmonica in hand, and the boy standing in the shadow of a tree, gradually bathed in sunlight as he ventures deeper into the woods. Later, we realize this may have just been a dream of Iris’s, and when she wakes up, it’s already dark around. Hong adeptly blurred the lines between dreams and reality as a narrative device, as evidenced in the second act of In Another Country; Yet now, such techniques are unnecessary, for reality itself resonates with dreamlike unease. The world no longer mirrors the miracles as in In Front of Your Face, and the green colour in the film no longer exudes the vibrant hues once witnessed by Hye-young Lee; instead, it becomes a color of loneliness and melancholy. What is the traveler seeking as she traverses a land suffused with such strangeness? What does she require to withstand the inherent alienation of existence? Like Hong’s many other works, the title of A Traveler's Needs is not an answer, but a question.

wirtten by ANNI