Did Hong make my new favourite?
in water (all lowercase!) might be the perfect synthesis of everything Hong Sang-soo has ever done; it might be his “ground zero” as this
review insightfully notes.
The gimmick of the film being almost entirely out of focus, note it’s not
entirely so, is both meaningless and meaningful. It embodies the flippant but genuine nature of Hong’s works. Don’t put too much thought into it, just roll with it. For my interpretation, it means both nothing and something. The nothingness of it is its formalism; it doesn’t add anything to the experience. If anything, it takes away. But the something is its relation to the story itself.
Mike wonders if this obscured lens is a symptom of how one with depression might see the world. I can’t speak for all who have experienced such a state, but I have a little experience and that doesn’t seem accurate to me. Instead, I saw it as more literally related to our protagonist’s mission: to make a film. Even the synopsis of the film lays it bare: Seong-mo (protagonist) doesn’t know what kind of film he wants to make. So, to me, it seems more obvious that this is a blurred vision for creation. He can’t see clearly what he wants to film.
The lens is honestly the least interesting thing to me though. Here, more than others, you really wonder where we’re going with this in the beginning. As usual, it’s just people talking, even more so about nothing than usual. In fact, I almost feel like Hong sets up a red herring for those who know his work. I thought some kind of domestic love triangle would reveal itself when Sang-guk and Nam-hee start to develop a sort of chemistry before Seong-mo’s eyes. But that never happens.
Despite the uncertainty of the “story,” Hong’s genius, or maybe just want I love so much about him, initially reveals itself at the trio’s first trip to the beach. They stand atop a cliff, all separately looking out into the distance. But down below, we see another trio, except it’s a couple embracing and being photographed by the third. Again, I felt this was reenforcing an underlying romance either pre-existing from the past or waiting to be born (presumably by an alcoholic catalyst). The reason this embodies my favourite kind of Hong ingredient is because I’m not entirely sure if that couple being photographed was planted or not. Parallels are Hong’s mo. Maybe Hong captured this authentic juxtaposition of separateness and togetherness or maybe he manufactured it. I’ll never know!
I believe Hong reveals himself at almost every turn of this movie. When Sang-guk and Nam-hee speak outside, they wonder how the film will work when nothing has been written down and there’s very little “plan.” It feels like Hong is consistently channeling every facet of himself and his work. When the trio goes to film Seong-mo’s film, we see it is an exact replication of the exact events he experienced earlier; more parallels. He encountered someone picking up trash on the beach, simply because (they’re a good person). This is the type of event, so innocuous yet so powerful, you can imagine inspiring Hong.
For anyone who was in doubt of the purpose of all this, Hong seems to bear his soul when Seong-mo explains the story behind his character in the replicated film events. It is an honest exposition, so simple, but so profoundly human. The final shot not only ties everything together, adds meaning to it all, but also formally justifies the out-of-focus lens we’ve sat with the entire film. If Hong, like Seong-mo, didn’t know what he was doing in the beginning, it doesn’t matter because it comes together in the end for something greater than he even thought originally possible.
