Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo has returned with another of his quiet cine-literary movie artefacts: ultra-lo-fi movies shot on video with available light, in real bedrooms, real apartments, in cafes and restaurants. They comprise mostly of shots of two people talking (and almost always drinking heavily) filmed at a cool distance from a fixed camera position, without the convention of shot-reverse-shot or the business of “coverage”. Hong is perhaps yet another beneficiary of the great Godardian inheritance – JLG showed films could do without these things, and productivity and speed could therefore be increased. And with Lars von Trier having long since abandoned the zero-budget aesthetic of Dogme 95, Hong has carried on, making fascinating, subtle, humane films with the bare minimum.
