Synopsis
A former actress with a secret returns to Seoul to live with her sister in a high-rise apartment and meets a director to discuss her return to acting.
In Front of Your Face
2021 ‘당신얼굴 앞에서’ Directed by Hong Sang-soo
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Alternative Titles
Dangsin-eolgul-apeseo, Delante de ti, Perante o teu rosto, Juste sous vos yeux
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Life really hits different when you're staring down the barrel (of debt, of disaster, of depression, of anything). Suddenly the same trees you've been passing every day look sacred with the rays of sun filtered through their infinite bowing branches. Or the sunset which takes on a new meaning that fills you with sudden sadness, a heliotropic reminder that everything will end. Even the faces on the subway are no longer extra-ordinary but extraordinary, appearing so beautiful that you could almost lick them; you won't, of course, but you wouldn't have even considered that before. It sometimes takes the drastic to make us this aware, but there's just something sublime in the every-day, the every-thing, the every-where. We just have to notice what's right in front of our face.
"This moment is grace; paradise."
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As a relative Hong Sang-soo novice, I'll say that this movie required a certain acclimation period for me, because its style goes against so much of what I've been conditioned to think a "well-made movie" looks like. It's shot on less-than-state-of-the-art digital video, replete with blown-out backgrounds and audio that muffles when the wind hits the mic. Hong parks his camera for long, long dialogue scenes that encompass information that a screenwriting manual would tell you to cut. If two people sit down for dinner, you will sit with them for the duration, which includes listening to them order. His style is not slapdash or ill-considered, but it is a challenge.
That said, a lot of what is immediately apparent about Hong's style…
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One of Hong's more direct movies. He still uses his favorite two part structure, but he isn't much interested in how stories are told as usual, the film starts by stating the main character current philosophy and then just gives it ample room to breath and contextualize. Very haunted by the pandemic. It is effective two long meetings and it makes the best at tracing how the main character relate to her sister and later an admiring self absorved director. The big laugh she gives when she gets his text the next day is one of my favorite bits in a Hong movie.
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A film touched by grace. Seeing the beauty of the world in the dissonant chords of a guitar lullaby, in a greasy face, or in an uncontrollable laughter. Learning to see and say things directly, for they are just in front of us: reflecting upon the past that may not have been so cheerful, conscious of the dying future, living in the all-cosuming present, the only thing that actually is. The most generous and miraculous film of the year.
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watching a hong sang-soo movie with a cup of tea and some toast is a great way to start the day 10/10 would recommend :)
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En uno de los momentos más hermosos de esta extraordinaria película, Sangok, la actriz interpretada por Lee Hye-young, explica que en un momento de su vida de gran desesperación salió a dar un paseo y todo lo que vio le pareció tan formidable, aún en su vulgaridad, que no pudo pensar en otra cosa mas que en seguir viviendo. Comenta especificamente el encuentro con un obrero que llevaba el rostro sucio y cubierto de grasa que de tan bello hubiese querido lamerlo.
Esta película de Hong Sangsoo es ese rostro. Rodada en las condiciones más precarias que ha tenido nunca una película suya (ni una decena de localizaciones), con un video digital de una calidad paupérrima donde en ocasiones notas…
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Hong Sang-soo's unique brand of artifice is just so enticing. His films are like little bubbles of the world, stuck in a small, structured, domestic realism, and yet quietly playful. In Front of Your Face is a straightforward film, though it has Hong's usual dual structures, this time with sisters, repetitive scenes, and a narrative shift midway through. It is a film of food, long talks, and even a little music. Hong only makes unassuming, incidental cinema, which is why his films are so easy to watch. In Front of Your Face does gradually reveal some sadness however, but it tries to stay positive. It is about final choices and contrasting them with the life you had. It is a film of drunken promises, which are to broken and laughed at. Most importantly though, it's a film about learning to appreciate what is in front of your face.
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She walked through the valley of the shadow of the death.
These secrets she hides that only memories have left.
So deep and keep trying to hide what she has been feeling.The memories in her heart were so heavy.
She doesn’t know why came here.
It was wrong of her. She won’t live this way.
She was curious about in front of her face… -
Did anyone ask Hong if he used the “Minuet in G major” in this because he’s a fan of Christian Petzold’s movies?
More later, probably.
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From my 2017 interview with Hong . . .
NOTEBOOK: Did you intentionally just quote Diary of a Country Priest? “Everything is grace.”
HONG: Oh, yeah, yeah. Maybe one of the reasons I liked that film when I saw it for the first time was because of that dialogue at the end. It touches me deeply. It’s what I keep saying to myself every day.
NOTEBOOK: It is all grace.
HONG: Everything. Whether we acknowledge it, it is grace.
NOTEBOOK: This is a dumb and obvious question, but is that what your characters are seeking?
HONG: Kim Min-hee’s character [in On the Beach at Night Alone] says something about this, about praying to God. Except for that character, I’ve never written someone who says this, my attitude, directly. I was being careful. But now I’ve changed, I guess, a little bit. With Kim Min-hee I thought, “Maybe it’s okay to say these things directly.”
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[7]
Lots of filmmakers were forced to change up their methods in order to keep working during the Covid-19 lockdown. But Hong Sangsoo is one from whom you might not expect any dramatic changes, since most of his films are intimate talkfests built around just a handful of actors. In Front of Your Face is very recognizably a Hong film. The very first shot features a close-up of a sleeping woman, Jeongok (Cho Yunhee), with the frame pierced ever so delicately by a loving hand, that of her older sister Sangok (Lee Hyeyoung). Then, in Hong's signature, understated manner, the image zooms out and gently pans to the right, to show us the two women together, and then Sangok in…
