My dad was watching in water with me and it took him 50 minutes to observe "this copy is not very good right?" so I count that as another Hong win. I guess pretty much any discussion of in water will center on ther blurry out of focus images, and I wonder how intentional it was that the main beats of the drama seems out of mid 00s Hong, like he is pushing old standbys (most of it he has not used much lately) towards a different framework. The drama is at its most rarified and aimless and in some ways the images replace some of the usual writing concepts he likes to use to offer a filter between audience…

"Why is you film blurry, director Hong?"

"I played with the idea of shooting out of focus, but I didn't take it very seriously. When it came to the first day of shooting and I was focusing the camera, I just decided to shoot out of focus. I really don't know. It wasn't intentional. I don't know."

in water reads like Hong's manifesto. Despite it's abstract visual nature, I think this may be a good entry point for Hong first-timers, simply because his way of working is laid so transparently bare: grab a camera and a handful of actors, travel to a location, place the actors in front of the camera and make them say things that you've come up…

meu querido amigo gabriel zupiroli costuma chamar os filmes da sang-soo de autoficções. pois bem, em mais uma de suas autoficções, sang-soo comenta sobre o seu próprio processo criativo. pelo menos eu acho que sim. é muito bonito ver o cineasta-protagonista meio perdido, sem método, roteiro, cronograma de filmagem, ele só sabe que tem que fazer isso e que de alguma forma as coisas vão acontecer enquanto ele bebe com os amigos ou anda pela praia. mais uma vez falando do meu amigo gabriel, cuja paixão pelo cinema do sang-soo e outras coisas da vida nos aproxima mesmo a gente nunca tendo se visto (e teria um vácuo na minha existência se eu morresse sem tomar uma cerveja contigo) -…

Ozu encontra Cézanne via Bill Viola.

É como se o Sang-soo partisse daquela ideia de enfatizar a presença dos personagens/elenco que é bem forte em alguns dos últimos filmes e repensasse isso dentro de uma estética pictórica, porém sem perder o aspecto cru e objetivo da sua abordagem.

As imagens fora de foco sugerem uma abstração sem precisar partir para uma estilização. Ele alcança isso através de uma manipulação direta no dispositivo da câmera e não através de um conceito complexo de fotografia.

Enquanto que nos outros filmes ele flerta com essa ideia dos personagens como espectros que passam por ambientes e deixam algum tipo de rastro que depois será assimilado de algum modo, aqui essa ideia de espectro está…

“it’s not bad. but let’s look more.”

ever disregard a movie just because almost every scene is ‘out of focus’ — personally, i see this as a piece of cinema that aptly captures the directionless and aimlessness of the human experience. Hong Sang-soo’s in water, i.e. his shortest and most experimental work to date, displays his vision of the filmmaking process — whilst deliberately blurring the line between reality and fiction. 

a group of young adults, location scouting for their soon-to-be first feature, yet the plot is still TBA — an approach where excitement meets nervousness, and as artists, we often struggle with insecurities and fear of either losing ourselves to our own work or the audience not resonating with…

The blurriness works much better than you'd expect, and it isn't just a gimmick. Let me explain it this way: I made a decision long ago to never get LASIK, not just because of horror stories I'd heard regarding chronic eye dryness, but because I'd never want to lose the option to see poorly. Part of my appreciation for "experimental art" (term used loosely) is that it can make me feel like I'm experiencing my senses anew, and I get a comparable sensation when putting on my glasses/contacts each morning.

in water makes for one of the most memorable Hong watches in recent years because its out-of-focus shots allow for participation in that exact experience. It's especially apt within Hong's…

Cinema as personal expression. Hong Sang-soo's In Water is a film about a film about the director. In Water is about filmmaking, specifically Hong's process and the way his real life seeps in front of the camera. No one plays with form in the way Hong does, just casually breaking cinematic convention for seemingly trivial reasons. In Water is shot almost entirely out of focus, placing the action on a blurry canvas that affords anonymity to the characters and makes the world seem more real, where fakery is obscured. In Water becomes a reflection of reality, or at least reality as it exists in Hong Sang-soo's world. This is a barebones movie, executed almost ad hoc and done on such…