Hill of Freedom

The deceptively simple cinema of Hong Sang-soo belies a filmmaker who keenly observes the follies of human nature and delights in playing with chronology and perspective. More recently, the master filmmaker has been using his playful storytelling tools and offbeat sense of humor to create a seductive air of mystery about what is real and what his protagonists simply imagine. In Hill of Freedom’s prologue, Kwon returns to Seoul after an extended trip away to find a stack of undated letters left at her office by a former lover. They drop to the floor on the way out, leaving an uncertain chronology of events for Kwon to sort out. The film proceeds, perhaps, through the order she then reads the letters. They begin with Mori, her Japanese ex-lover from a previous trip abroad, recently arrived in Seoul and looking to reunite with her. He is unaware that she is abroad and instead finds himself awaiting her return in a boardinghouse, passing the time with a series of awkward and farcical interactions magnified by cultural barriers and humorously clumsy English. Gently insisting that life tends to teach us through the disappointments and unexpected dead ends we encounter rather than Hollywood-style epiphanies, Hong Sang-soo provides an honest and charming look at the accidental poetry that guides us as human beings.