The Woman Who Ran (2020) User Reviews

Escape

[politic1983 · 7/10 · 10 November 2020]

Every year, there's perhaps one thing that you can count on: Hong Sang-soo delivering another of his low-key, gentle comedies. And despite all that 2020 wants to throw at us, he has yet again delivered with a short, whimsical tale of inner turmoil, though this time light on the alcohol and heavy on the subtlety.

Gam-hee (increasing Hong ever-present Kim Min-hee) visits three friends from her past now that she finally has a day off from her seemingly happily married life, running a flower shop as she approaches middle-age. As ever, Hong throws us into each scenario with little context to start, leaving us to put the pieces together ourselves.

The first visit is to Young-soon (Seo Young-hwa), now divorced living in an apartment with her flatmate. Conversation is slow, with heavy alcohol consumption implied, but not really shown. Young-soon is clearly something of a big sister figure for Gam-hee, wanting to look after her friend as much as possible, while she complains about her ageing body. Her approach to her flatmate and young neighbour also show her role in society as a surrogate mother. Here we are introduced to Gam-hee's voyeurism, as she watches security camera footage of her friend's daily life. Five years of not spending any time away from her husband clearly starting to take its toll, Gam-hee chooses staring longingly out of the window over sleep. Living a simple life with her flatmate, Young-soon has something that Gam-hee is missing.

Next up is yoga instructor and theatre director Su-young (Song Seon-mi), who is seemingly living the high-life in a luxurious new apartment building full of artists. Gam-hee offers her an unwanted coat from her husband which Su-young laps up. Single, Su-young's life is relatively care-free; her biggest dilemma whether she should become a regular at the local bar frequented by artists or not. But a knock on the door shows that single life has also brought with it problems. A young poet demands to see her after a drunken one-night stand and Su-young has struggled to shake him off since. Absentmindedly burning their lunch, Su-young has a youthful freedom Gam-hee has now lost, again watching the security camera footage of Su-young's exchange with the young poet. Other lives are clearly more exciting.

Finally, we meet - supposedly accidentally - cinema director Woo-jin (Kim Sae-byuk), a woman with whom Gam-hee shares a difficult past: her husband Gam-hee's former lover. The pair discuss their mutual love and how now that his writing career has taken off, he has become less likeable for both of them. Woo-jin laments how she sees little of her husband, avoiding the book launch party held for him in the same building. Having finished her film, Gam-hee can't help but bump into her former beau. The exchange, however, is fruitless and short. He is not the answer Gam-hee is looking for.

Instead, after feigning to leave, she returns to the cinema to re-watch the peaceful film she had just seen, alone. Escape, however temporary, is what was required.

As ever with Hong, his little self-aware quirks and repetition are present, with each scenario containing similar themes as the character build of Gam-hee develops. All three scenarios see Gam-hee visit an old friend in a new setting for their life, with how they got there a talking point. Each also features an unwanted exchange with a male in a doorway, where the man tries to enforce his wants on the free woman. But the women here are having none of it. Screens and windows also featured in each, with Gam-hee looking for a life away from her own.

By comparison, Gam-hee's life is more secure and happy than her three friends'. She is inseparable from her husband, quietly running a flower shop. The others have divorce, unwanted male attention and deteriorating marriages to deal with. All, however, want for nothing compared to Gam-hee. The repetition of how she hasn't been apart from her husband for five years is the joking cry for help Hong throws in, making it clear that this is a woman who wants out. It has become a burden. Her friends are all more open about the state of their lives and how happy they are, with Gam-hee starting off more reserved, with frustrations starting to seep through.

This is a feminist response to his 2010 "HaHaHa", with alcohol more implied throughout, rather than the central theme of his previous works. Here the women are not so easily bedded as his heroes would typically expect, taking stock of their lives and starting anew, adding a refreshing hint to his typical blend of long takes, lengthy discussions, zooms and pan shots over a table. Typically Eric Rohmer, typically Hong.

Woo-jin asks Gam-hee what she thought of the film she had just watched and she replies that it was very peaceful. Hong has again produced a subtle film to relax into, as we voyeuristically watch other people's conversations. His annual release this year bringing a little slice of peace and escape that we all need.

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Comfort movie. Calming visuals

[moviesknight · 7/10 · 28 December 2021]

This is a comfort movie. The older you get, the more sensible you become. It is funny looking back into the past when we meet the familiar faces. Friendships, aquaintances, love, marriage, divorce, separation, loneliness, happiness, sadness, betrayals, and all other things together patched up. Sometimes we do need the closure even if it doesnt bothers so much. Remember everything that we worry about now wont even be an issue few years down the line.

Great Director Dismantles Own Ego

[sps-70659 · 7/10 · 25 October 2020]

HSS loves to come at it sideways. This movie opens in the morning to a batch of chooks, whose owner is going for a job interview, and neighbour Young-soon wishes her well. Is the interview successful? An evening CCTV shot is a clue.

But visiting Young-soon is Gam-hee, who tells us repeatedly she's "never apart" from her new husband, a translator. Except, it's his idea, not hers.

The two pals hold an absurdist lunch conversation about the nature of eating meat, while another Young-soon neighbour begs her to stop feeding the local cats. This meta-conversation bats back and forth. The cat steals the scene.

Gam-hee's next visitee Su-young is also interrupted by an annoying bloke, a self-important poet who can't get over a one-night stand. But once again the two pals converse a little too brightly about nothing in particular - clothes, art, the mountain, the neighbourhood, the mystery person who discounted the price on Su-young's apartment. We never quite find out why.

Gam-hee runs into a third pal, and apologises for some long-previous slight. We never find out what. This third pal just happens to be married to Gam-hee's ex, a famous, and famously windy, writer.

Can the writer be sincere, if he just keeps saying the same thing over and over? An obvious reference to HSS himself, with two dozen movies in two dozen years. Then Gam-hee herself works a brittle encounter with the ex himself.

Cerebral manoeuvres about art and artists, but this is a movie, which has to signify through visuals, not just dialogue. Inside 80 minutes, HSS largely pulls it off. He is one of a kind, and I wish his movies were easier to access.

If you find "Parasite" over the top, try HSS instead, for a different aspect of Korea's wonderful cinema.

The film that lost its balance

[johnpmoseley · 6/10 · 4 April 2022]

A film in three sections, the first of which was easily 10 stars for me. Not really like anything I've ever seen, though the long takes, simple framing and meandering but always engaging dialogue is reminiscent of Rohmer. Also as in Rohmer, the abundant chatting gives the characters plenty of space to reveal the peculiarities and even little aggressions behind their seemingly bland, friendly normality. What's really new is how effortlessly, almost inexplicably funny all this is. I was just delighted by this part, by its originality, sheer, rare intelligence and perfect subtlety. Virtually nothing else in cinema now reaches these kinds of heights and, watching on Mubi as I was, where one is all too aware of this, I was feeling immensely relieved: 'Finally, something good.'

Then the second section starts, our 30s female protagonist visits another friend and a sinking feeling set in as I realised the comedy was gone and wasn't coming back. Was I just in it for the yuks? No, damnit, the funny part was also the smart part that had something to say, and the writing of which was like a delicate high wire act. After that, the film kneecaps itself with its own self-conscious, humourless pursuit of profundity, and where part 1 was subtle, the lunging at the depths is almost embarrassingly blunt.

It's like the film is dumping on the first section, on its own best part, telling us it was all just a bit of fun before we got to the serious, important, grown-up stuff. But look how banal that stuff is. Did we really need to meet the second friend to learn, yet again, that the single life is hard, or the third to learn, again yet again, that marriage is often no better? Did we, in particular, need the protagonist's repetition in each of these sections of the same info about her life with her husband? Yes, it arguably takes on new inflections each time, but the first was already weird and easily the most interesting, precisely because it was delivered as if it was perfectly fine.

It's all reminiscent of the lesson anyone learns if they take a decent improv class: those things you think you need to do to justify the piece are done out of insecurity and are bad.

Cinema Omnivore - The Woman Who Ran (2020) 7.2/10

[lasttimeisaw · 7/10 · 16 April 2022]

" Three states, whether divorced, unmarried or married, none is perfect for a woman, each has its own pitfalls and perks, that amounts to common knowledge. As for Gam-hee, what runs underneath her 'happy marriage' guise is some undertow inaccessible to viewers. Kim Min-hee can telegraph emotional shadings in a heartbeat, but cumulatively, she hardly step out of her comfort zone in Hong's conceptualization of an 'every woman' to his liking, all her characters are consistently cerebral, coy, sensitive and prone to keep one's own counsel."

read my full review on my blog: Cinema Omnivore, thanks.

A small and beautifully polished gem.

[MOscarbradley · 9/10 · 18 January 2021]

I remember once generalising that any film that takes three hours to tell its story can't really be that good. Of course, such generalisations are rubbish; films are as good or as bad as they are whether they are ten minutes long or ten hours but there's something to be said for 'the miniature'. Little films can be beautifully polished gems and there are many small films of seventy-five minutes or so that you wish would go on forever.

Sang-soo Hong's "The Woman who Ran" is one such film. It's a conversation piece and there's a lot of small talk but it's so beautifully directed and acted you feel a sense of privilege just being with these people and these people are mostly female friends, or maybe just acquaintances, spending time together. When a man makes an early appearance, in a terrifically written and very funny single take sequence, he seems something of an intruder but Hong has so much fun with the scene he makes for a very welcome intruder. Mostly, however, it's just women talking about their lives, the men in their lives, their pasts and the pleasure or otherwise of eating meat and I wish it could have gone on for another hour or so.

3 parts, 3 friends, 3 meals

[fassolka · 7/10 · 28 August 2023]

House visits, shared meals and dialogue, are themes that this movie is based on. It is a simple movie, with unique details, and yet with no so simple theme. It is a story of a young woman trying to find her own path, trying to define herself. She visits her friends and, maybe to keep it safe, tells the same suspiciously repetitive story of her life to each of them. She tries not to stray too far away from the society, however we know that she already did.

I really liked the finishing of scenes with zooming in on characters´faces, including a stray cat. Just a little touch to give the viewer even more intimate perspective, beyond the dialogue we hear. It seems to be an inaudible comment saying: which version of "I" are we: the one that we present to others, or the private one, known only by ourselves?

It is a good, simple, yet not boring movie. To me, it lacked a bit of surprise or complexity of plot for a higher score.

PS Korean fashion is really aesthetically pleasing.

What we say about us

[danybur · 8/10 · 7 September 2021]

Summary

A film that, with astonishing naturalness, based on the successive reunions of a woman with three friends, reflects how many times we must reconstruct the other based only on what he tells us about himself, how many times we are just what we formulate and we reveal about ourselves through our discourse, how many times we are our story.

Review:

Taking advantage of a business trip from her husband, Gam-hee (Kim Min-hee) goes out to visit some friends whom she has not seen for a long time.

Apparently it sounds small: basically Hong San-soo's film (Silver Bear for Best Director at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival) is made up of Gam-hee's three conversations with her friends. The question is everything that is at stake there and in what way.

In the first place, the incredible feeling of naturalness and even lightness that these reunions convey, filmed in long still shots nuanced with some zooms and other resources. Who are those women? What is its history? What do they propose? What is the link between them? We will learn about some things, but never as a grandiose or transcendent revelation and always under the sign of cordiality and a generally relaxed atmosphere. Other issues will remain in an interesting and suggestive out of the field such as stories taken up in media res. But this narrative distension will only be interrupted by the brief appearances of men on the scene as disruptive elements: they will be the ones who bring the uncomfortable moments, contrasting with the consensus of cordiality of the women. One of these interventions will acquire truly anthological humorous overtones.

It is also necessary to point out the relevance that the scenarios take, thanks to the framing and the dialogues. The feeling of immediacy, of being there, in those houses, is really palpable.

The woman who escapes is a film that with astonishing naturalness (hand in hand with the remarkable performances) reflects how many times we must reconstruct the other based only on what he tells us about himself, how many times we are just what we formulate and reveal of us through our discourse, in a story that from time to time even leads us to question everything we hear.

The Woman Who Ate and Ate but Didn't Get Fat

[joachimokeefe · 4/10 · 10 October 2022]

TWWR is about an extremely thin woman who visits three friends, separately, while her husband (who may not exist) is away on a trip. With each friend she eats and drinks and talks. This is a fairly common device for when there's no other action to be getting on with: meals, a substitute for drama which you will see in any soap opera you care to name.

Pleasant enough to look at, well acted on the whole and interesting for a glimpse of middle-class Korean life, which seems to be exactly like any other middle class life. Some of the crash zooms are a bit clumsy, maybe the camera was old. Rather slow - people park their cars, try on coats, watch films, eat, drink and talk. Only two men appear, which may be a positive for you. Middle class Korea looks, er, nice. Seoul house prices are discussed at length.

The dramatic tension appears to rest in the fact that no matter how much she eats, she gets thinner and thinner. She doesn't do any running. Does she have worms? The question is left unresolved.

An observation of the modern fake life

[jasonisaikaly · 10/10 · 4 May 2021]

Less is more. It's a 27 shots film, that takes its time by breathing from one scene to another. By the long take you can't make the viewer blink or loose concentration, if you think like a regular movie, you'll see that nothing happen, but if you think deep and see the meaning not the substance you'll be mesmerised.

This film shows the absurdity of a woman's life, and how they are many women like her. She believes in a fancy life that she caged herself in a woman of no feeling. From one woman to another she tells the same story, and observe with curiosity the people she visits because she lost the meaning of life and she's filling out her moments by the story of others. While the other doesn't like her so much but in the act of kindness they let her interfere. When she saw a life in a film she saw first she didn't give it attention and ate while the film was rolling she seeing only the picture and she saids "nice", but while she's living she stopped and returned to watch the same film, because it is the only key hope for her change and return to her real self.

This film is very inspiring, very calm, it really reminds me why movies are made, and give me hope that we are still to this day making great films, I really felt that I was watching a film by Robert Bresson, but the director of this film is filled with unlimited passion, and showed me that you don't need to much money to make a film, you just has to believe in it, and make it, don't wait, and don't cage yourself like this women, do what you always want to do, and don't pretend to life no more.

Do not recommend

[minduxz · 1/10 · 6 March 2021]

Absurd dialogues, movie is shot like a school project, I feel like I wasted my time which will never get back.