What Does That Nature Say to You review – funny and complex Korean dad-boyfriend standoff

The Guardian

5 days ago

With his own particular kind of unhurried ceaselessness and murmuring calm, Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo has produced another of his elegant, discursive, low-key movies of the educated middle classes. These are movies so numerous and so obviously comparable to each other that they collectively constitute a kind of Balzacian Comédie Humaine, though on a more intimate scale. It will surprise none of Hong's admirers to discover that this film once again shows us a series of conversations with familiar repertory players, informal one-on-one chats shot casually in available light, with people doing a vast amount of daytime drinking. Really, does any film-maker show characters getting quietly plastered as often and realistically as Hong?
It's possible to feel simultaneously amused, bemused, intrigued and exasperated at Hong's film-making, to wonder if the drinking and the consequent inevitable cathartic outburst are in fact cathartic or dramatically meaningful, to wonder what it is leading to. But arguably the enigma is the point. This movie lodged in my mind a little more than Hong's earlier films, perhaps because it is less contrived and it features a genuinely funny and complex opening scene.
Donghwa (Ha Seong-guk) is an amiable but conceited man in his mid 30s who aspires to be a poet; it is quite clear that his wealthy lawyer father is bankrolling him, however much he claims to be independent. For three years, he has been dating Sunhee (Cho Yun-hee) though without ever meeting or apparently wanting to meet her parents. It is only when dropping her off at their house one day that he is prevailed upon to come in and meet them, while being astonished at how grand the house is (in the process revealing that he is more impressed by money than he would admit).
Sunhee's father Oryeong (Hong regular Kwon Hae-hyo) is polite and blusteringly good humoured, though clearly nettled at Donghwa's finally deigning to say hello. His complicated and contradictory emotions spill out in an amusingly pointless and embarrassing discussion of Donghwa's secondhand car – which he impulsively asks to drive, just to see what it's like, and to demonstrate his alpha-male mastery of the situation.
Many other embarrassingly uptight conversations between Sunhee's dad and boyfriend ensue, fuelled by drink. Finally, there is a weirdly fractious scene at the dinner table, triggered by Sunhee's sister and her scepticism of Donghwa. Yet the boozing seems to result in no hangover, real or metaphorical. Intriguing as ever.
What Does That Nature Say to You is at the ICA, London, from 25 July.