Hill of Freedom

Director: Hong Sangsoo

2014 / 66min / DCP

The progress through a hopelessly shuffled stack of love letters inspires the a-chronological structure of Hong’s Hill of Freedom—Moon So-ri’s second film with Hong—which describes the terse long-distance relationship between a South Korean woman (Seo Young-hwa) and a Japanese man (Ryo Kase) who has built an ardent romantic fantasy around her, only to, on his return to Seoul after some years absence, find himself gravitating towards a friendly coffee shop proprietress (Moon), whose establishment gives the film its title. “With modest means and a limited field of action, Hong achieves a complexity akin to the grand historical meditations of Alain Resnais… Conjures revealing attitudes through reverberant—and often comical—details.” —Richard Brody, The New Yorker ⠀

Distributor: Grasshopper

Part of Actress as Auteur: Spotlight on Moon So-ri