The Human Comedy – the cinema of Hong Sangsoo, at the ICA

Since the last UK retrospective of his work in 2010, South Korean filmmaker Hong Sangsoo has made an astonishing twenty-two feature films and several shorts. With his incisive and humorous explorations of infidelity, artistic endeavour, and communication (or lack thereof), Hong’s narratively concise and formally radical work has marked him out as not only contemporary cinema’s most prolific filmmaker but also its most inventive.

Since 2010 Hong has consistently and radically reinvented his approach to the medium. From his repurposing of the zoom as an instrument capable of oscillating between comedic and tragic registers, to his mesmeric utilisation of repetition, ellipses, and general temporal disruption.

In the process it has become abundantly clear that each of Hong’s film is a part of something larger, and the most illuminating way both to view and consider these films is as a body of work. As Joachim Lepastier writes ‘…his films would thus be chapters of a vaster and more continuous oeuvre to which the work of time would give its material and density…’.

While Hong’s work has been celebrated regularly at major festivals like Berlin and Cannes and through major retrospectives in New York and Paris, in the UK his films have remained difficult to see beyond festival screenings and their distribution has been inconsistent at best.

The ICA is delighted to present this retrospective of Hong Sangsoo’s work since 2010, and to provide audiences in the UK with this long overdue opportunity to explore the ever-evolving oeuvre of this great artist.

Screenings

Fri 25 Oct, 6.30pm: Oki’s Movie (2010, 80 min)
Sat 26 Oct, 4.15pm: The Day He Arrives (2011, 79 min)
Sun 27 Oct, 3.30pm: List + In Another Country (2011, 29 min + 2012, 89 min)
Wed 30 Oct, 6.30pm: Nobody’s Daughter Haewon (2013, 86 min)
Sat 2 Nov, 3pm: Our Sunhi + Hill of Freedom  (2013, 89 min + 2014, 67 min)
Sun 3 Nov, 2.30pm: Right Now, Wrong Then (2015, 121 min)
Thu 7 Nov, 6.40pm: Yourself and Yours (2016, 86 min)
Sat 9 Nov, 3.30pm: On the Beach at Night Alone (2017, 101 min)
Sun 10 Nov, 2pm: The Day After (2017, 91 min)
Wed 13 Nov, 6.30pm: Claire’s Camera + Grass (2017, 69 min + 2018, 68 min)
Sun 17 Nov, 2pm: Hotel by the River (2018, 96 min)
Thu 21 Nov, 6.40pm: Introduction (2021, 66 min)
Sat 23 Nov, 2.30pm: In Front of Your Face (2021, 85 min)
Sun 24 Nov, 2.30pm: The Novelist’s Film (2022, 92 min)
Thu 28 Nov, 6.30pm: Walk Up (2022, 97 min)
Sun 1 Dec, 2.30pm: In Water (2023, 61 min)
Sun 1 Dec, 4pm: In Our Day (2023, 84 min)
Thu 5 Dec, 6.30pm: A Traveler’s Needs (2024, 90 min)
Sun 8 Dec, 4.30pm: By the Stream (2024, 111 min. London Premiere)