By the Stream, Hong Sangsoo’s 32nd feature, begins like many of the previous 31, with a polite meeting between two people on a fleeting note—neither strangers nor as familiar as they might once have been. Hesitant pleasantries are exchanged before one says to the other, “You haven’t changed at all.” That’s a hasty statement, of course: The ensuing action, such as it is, reveals either how much has changed between the two, or how much they’ve forgotten along the way. Distinguished from Hong’s other films by its slight autumnal chill and accompanying russet palette, this subtle comedy about actors, academics, and dreams set aside welcomes the director’s loyal fans like a gentle but hesitant embrace.
The prolific South Korean director’s second feature, 2024, which premiered in competition at the Locarno Film Festival — following Berlinale winner “A Traveler’s Needs,” starring Isabelle Huppert — will likely be the lesser-known of the two. Both are narratively muted and indirect, even by the standards of a director for whom “muted and indirect” is a default setting, but “By the Stream” is more diffuse and elusive as a character study — probably too much to win over many arthouse followers. The director’s followers, however, will be delighted by the film’s breezy romantic streak and a series of breezy, nimble performances from Hong stars Kwon Haehyo and Kim Minhee, both of whom play characters questioningly searching for themselves.
It’s Sieon (Kwon), a formerly respected actor turned bookstore owner, who remarks to his niece Jeonim (Kim) that she hasn’t changed in that introductory scene. She can’t agree, claiming instead that her life has “taken a sudden turn.” She can’t even try to retort the platitude. No clear explanation is given for Sieon’s career downturn—it’s vaguely mentioned that he criticized others and was “attacked” for it—but he has the shuffling expression of someone accustomed to keeping his head down. Jeonim, a lonely, shy art teacher at a women’s university in Seoul, has asked him for a favor more in keeping with his former self: the university is hosting its annual sketch theater festival, and she wants him to write and direct her department’s entry.
In a fit of nostalgia—not just for his theater career, but also for his participation in a similar competition when he was younger—Sieon agrees, though he is a little miffed when he learns that he is only a replacement, as the original director was fired after sleeping with three members of the cast. (It would be a stretch to call this droll, minor film some kind of statement on cancel culture, but one can detect a sly metatextual nod to the Korean tabloid scandal that accompanied his affair with Kim—now his partner and production manager—several years ago.) Jeonim need not worry about her uncle committing the same faux pas: When she introduces him to her boss (and longtime Sieon fan) Jeong (Cho Yunhee), the mutual attraction is immediately obvious.
What follows are some of the boozy food scenes that are Hong’s specialty: Jeong invites Sieon to lunch at her favorite eel restaurant, followed by more flutter-eyed lunch and dinner dates, with Jeonim the increasingly passive-aggressive fifth wheel. Few filmmakers can navigate the dynamics of a dinner table so wittily, with the characters’ intimacies and animosities expressed in what they eat (does seafood porridge signal the beginning or end of a flirtation?), the way they eat it, and, most importantly, their choice of accompanying beverage—which ranges from cautiously mannered wine to tongue-loose Makgeolli. Amidst all this gourmet frenzy, the sketch takes a decided back seat, while Jeonim—a loner who likes to sketch by the nearby stream and even sleeps outside in the crisp autumn weather—retreats even more into herself.
Even that description makes By the Stream sound more action-packed than it feels, since Hong’s storytelling is measured in glances, pauses and, in a somewhat cosmic new embellishment, phases of the moon. Sudden emotional outbursts come in unexpected places, as in a strangely moving scene when Sieon asks his quartet of young amateur actresses what they want to be, to which they receive a range of earnest answers, from “a person who truly loves” to “I will light the smallest lamp in the corner and protect it until I die.” This kind of tender sentimentality is not typical of Hong, a filmmaker whose basic feature pattern borders on self-parody in its consistency but allows for a fluid, ever-expanding range of moods, feelings and foibles. Once again, Hong Sangsoo’s cinema has not changed at all, except in the way it has changed.
