GRASS

Prolific Korean director Hong Sang-soo returns with another addition to his oeuvre of soju-soaked conversations and confusions between people.

Sang-soo regular Kim Min-hee (MIFF 2016’s The Handmaiden) stars as Areum, an inveterate eavesdropper who sits in a café on the outskirts of Seoul and listens to the conversations of the people around her, preserving them via transcripts written on her laptop. But are these conversations being relayed to us as Areum hears them, or are they out-blown fictions created by the listener herself?

Displaying plenty of the director’s regular thematic and stylistic concerns – the struggles of being a writer, the perils of communication, a velvety black and white aesthetic, a film director in all sorts of inter-personal bother, and of course hangover-inducing amounts of soju – Grass appears simple, yet Hong aficionados will deeply appreciate how it simultaneously distils and opens up the director’s unique universe into a thousand new permutations.

"An exquisite hangout movie [with a] probing, sardonic approach to character and conversation." – Sight & Sound