WALK UP World Cinema

Working his way through the middle-age blues despite being a famous and celebrated film director, Byung-soo pays a visit to old friend Ms. Kim in hopes of securing an interior design apprenticeship for his daughter Jeongsu. As Ms. Kim gives the pair a tour of the four-story building she owns, nosy and unconcerned with the ethics of snooping in peoples’ apartments, Byung-soo is quickly called away for a work meeting, leaving the two women to discuss their lives, their pasts and potential future. But as the director returns and one conversation leads to another, over many, many bottles of wine, time passes and the banality of small talk – of commerce versus art, travel and the lingering effects of the pandemic – slowly reveals a deep longing, each person revealing themselves not just with words, but also in the silences between those words, in this slyly witty and ephemeral new film from prolific modern master Hong Sang-soo. –Cedar Sherbert