Sang-soo Hong's Hill of Freedom is another quietly profound film from the acclaimed South Korean filmmaker which manipulates narrative structure in telling its simple, yet engrossing story. Hill of Freedom opens with Kwon returning to Seoul after therapeutic stay in the mountains. Checking her mail, she receives a packet of letters left by Mori, an old friend and potential love interest, who has returned to Seoul from Japan in the hopes of proposing to her. While leaving the mail facility, Kwon accidentally drops the packet of letters, all of which are undated, making it up to her to make sense of the chronology of Mori's journey to see her. At 66 minutes in running time, Sang-Soo Hong's Hill of Freedom is a pleasant experience, but don't let the film's modest production and simplistic style fool you, as Hill of Freedom manages to capture life, humanity, and relationships is such a truthfully earnest way. While Sang-soo Hong's films could always be described as modest, it's the filmmakers quiet sense of humor that provides the viewer an easy window into the universal truths and experiences his film's express. Hill of Freedom isn't so much a love story but a story of longing and loneliness, using Sang-Soo Hong's quietly humorous tone to reveal attitudes, feelings, and universal truths. The fear associated with loneliness and the power of companionship or love is perhaps the primary focus of Hill of Freedom, showing a character who is desperate to reconnect with the one woman he believes makes him happy. Cultural dislocation is felt by Mori on his journey, being a Japanese man in South Korea, and Hong uses this dislocation as another layer of the story, helping to en-capture the psyche of a character who is longing, nervous, but also unsure of himself and what he is doing in general. Hill of Freedom reminds the viewer of how much companionship or love can provide shelter and security from personal problems, with the world feeling far more conquerable when someone is by your side, but Hong is very much a realist as well, reminding the viewer that humanity is rarely in control of its own fate and what we think we understand is merely manipulated by our emotions. Mori longs for Kwong but along the way he meets a host of individuals, both male and female, which help him feel at home in South Korea. Through these connections, Hong shapes Hill of Freedom with two possible outcomes, presenting them to the viewer at the end in back-to-back sequences. The film shows little interest in defining the ending of Mori's story, and I think that's the point, as both possible conclusions are assured and affirming regardless, capturing life in quietly astute ways, thanks to Hong's unique brand of filmmaking.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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