Director: Hong Sang-soo | South Korea | Fiction | 2013 | 90 mins
Film source: Finecut
Hong Sang-soo is on a roll. Following the success of his quirky romantic triptych In Another Country (screened at VTIFF 2012) comes Nobody’s Daughter Haewon, a casually profound comedy-drama about a depressed and restless film student/aspiring actress who drifts back into a relationship with a married professor after her mother moves to Canada. Hong’s specialty is the rhythms and nuances of everyday life, but here he blurs dreams and reality, questioning the very notion of cinema as a representation of “real life.” With an idiosyncratic use of digital zooms, which serve to italicize subtle emotional and conversational shifts in a narrative which moves effortlessly between ironic humor and quiet despair, Nobody’s Daughter Haewon is the work of a modern master at the peak of his powers.