In Front of Your Face
classified 12A SPlease note: This was screened in Sept 2022
Prolific South Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo (The Day a Pig Fell Into The Well) is a luminous, poignant, wry and typically exploratory drama set against the shifting skyline of Seoul.
A middle-aged former actress, Sangok (Lee Hye-young, who, mirroring her character, is known in South Korea for her past performances but hasn’t been seen on screens recently) returns to the city after spending several years abroad. She stays with her estranged sister Jeongok (Yunhee Cho) in her high-rise apartment where the two sleep late and dine out. But as the details of Sangok's day accrue, it becomes clear that there is much she is not revealing. The question is, do these mysterious circumstances have something to do with her decision to meet with film director Jaewon (Kwon Haehyo) to discuss her return to acting...?
A brief, exquisitely personal, melancholic but sometimes very funny drama, In Front of Your Face explores distance and closeness of all kinds. It is perhaps one of Hong’s most accessible films to date and a love letter to Seoul.