Once again, there’s only one Korean film in the BFI LFF’s schedule this year. But at least that means there should be more for LEAFF and LKFF to choose from. Hopefully one of them will have secured crowdpleasers such as Alienoid 2 and The Plotters…
Hong Sangsoo's A Traveler’s Needs (여행자의 필요) at BFI LFF
Isabelle Huppert is reunited with Korean maestro Hong Sangsoo in an irresistibly enigmatic comic vignette about language, poetry, exile and the art of communication.
In her third collaboration with South Korea’s super-prolific auteur, Isabelle Huppert – here at her most slyly mischievous – plays Iris, a Frenchwoman in Korea who offers language classes using her own highly oblique method. As mysteries thicken around Iris and her method, this teasingly elusive miniature offers poetic insight and philosophical wit, together with delicious performances from a cast including Hong regulars Lee Hyeyoung and Kwon Haehyo.
Text by Jonathan Romney, BFI