REVIEW - NOBODY'S DAUGHTER HAE WON

Nobody's Daughter Hae Won simpers in, not particularly bothered whether people notice it or not. It is content with its blandness. It is content to not make a stir. It's a tepid glass of water. It's a cloudy day. It's a slice of white bread and butter. Hong Sang Soo has developed quite the confidence in his ability to depict such innocuousness with such passivity, as he's continuing to make a career out of it. Films distinguishable only by content, rather than style, tone or genre. They're exercises in cinematic passivity, in fact so passive that they're even passively passive: watching paint dry for 90 minutes might represent an artistic statement, but if Jane Birkin shows up after a few moments for the plain old hell of it, it suddenly becomes just watching paint dry. Boring. Hong Sang Soo, you've bored me. I'm not grateful. I can enjoy being shocked, provoked or challenged by a film. I can't enjoy boredom. There's no part of me that ever yearns to be bored, and I never get used to it. Of course, the point is to direct one's attention toward subtle details in the shot - a scene set at a grill offers no diversions, so one diligently examines the behaviour of each character in the group. But wouldn't one do that in any other film, better or worse? And why does this purpose only spring up at select moments, as most of the film is so devoid of details of interest that one's attention evaporates almost completely? I recall the films of Ozu Yasujiro. So simple, and so devoted to their simplicity. So delicate. They, too, were cinematic exercises, but in beauty, tranquility and humanity. And so Nobody's Daughter Hae Won simpers out, not particularly bothered by the fact that almost no-one noticed it. I, however, did notice it, and I am not content with its blandness.