In Our Day (Hong Sang-soo, 2023)

Challenging one, this. In several respects it is one of Hong's most original films. Granted, it isn't shot almost entirely out of focus, like in water from earlier this year. But it's fairly obvious that Hong is trying to shake things up, finding new ways to explore his usual preoccupations. In this case, he has broken his film into chapters, and at first we expect that the different sets of characters from the alternating sections will encounter one another. Alas, no; there are six parts, alternating between the two separate stories, with no narrative overlap. Apart from two different characters enjoying red pepper paste in their ramyen, there are almost no connections. At least no overt ones.

Narrative One consists of Jungsoo (Song Sun-mi) being visited by an old friend, Sangwon (Kim Min-hee), and the two of them just chatting in that awkward, repetitive manner that happens when Hong is letting the actors improvise. Initially there is almost no narrative movement, even when Sangwon's cousin Jisoo (Park Misoo) drops by unexpectedly. In the third chapter, Jisoo tells Sangwon that she wants to study acting, and would like some advice, But Sangwon, a longtime actress, is planning to give it up. Jisoo's questions force Sangwon to reflect on her decision.

Narrative Two centers on a poet named Hong Uiji (Ki Joo-bong). Uiji is at a precarious moment of his own. His health failing, he has been advised by his doctor to give up two of his favorite pastimes, drinking and smoking. His young friend Kijoo (Park Miso), a graduate student who is making a documentary film about Uiji, tries to encourage the poet to stay with his regimen, turning him on to the pleasures of non-alcoholic beer. But his resolve weakens in the end.

Like Sangwon, Uiji is pressed to account for his career choice by a younger acolyte, in this case a man by the name of Jaewon (Ha Seong-guk). Where Jisoo presses Sangwon about why she has given up acting, Jaewon takes almost the opposite tack, asking blunt and impertinent questions of Uiji. "Why do you write poetry? No one reads it, no one buys it." To which Uiji reasonably replies, "you read it, right? That's enough." In the final chapter of Narrative Two, Jaewon plies Uiji with more questions. "What is life?" "What is love?" Kijoo, meanwhile, keeps filming, laughing to herself that she's captured this encounter with hands-down the worst interviewer in the world.

The fifth and sixth chapters end with what may be the only actual incidents in the film. Jungsoo's beloved cat Us escapes from the apartment, and Sangwon tries to comfort her as she writhes on the floor in despair. Luckily, Jisoo tracks him down and brings him home. One could speculate on the meaning of the cat being named Us, particularly when Jisoo mentions having known another pet with the same name. But such speculation may be fruitless. Uiji instructs Jaewon to stop looking for meaning, that the fact of things, their material existence, is the only meaning we can derive from them.

But then, in the final chapter, we see Uiji crack open a bottle of Johnnie Walker and take out a pack of smokes. He seems happy, more relaxed. So if I were to disregard the poet's Sontag-like advisory against interpretation, I might argue that the two narratives are connected by losing and then regaining love objects (Us, smoke and drink), along with the inverse relationship between Sangwon and Uiji -- she explaining why she no longer wants to create, he explaining why he's unequipped to do anything else. If we go further, we can read this back onto Hong himself, and the impasse he may have reached in his filmmaking. Is In Our Day the director's rendition of the Samuel Beckett paradox? "I can't go on. I'll go on."