Hong Sang-soo’s On the Beach at Night Alone is strangely aloof and just as strangely piercing. At first glance, it is hard to grasp why the film strikes such an emotional chord; the story is clean and simple, lingering on scene after scene of leisurely smoking, drinking coffee, and clinking soju shot glasses. However, with each alcohol-heavy conversation, a strong poeticism takes shape that encapsulates more than plain loneliness.
The film explores the emotional aftermath of a forgotten love affair between an actress and a film director. The main character, the actress, speaks in a peculiarly straightforward manner, to the extent in which her words waver between poetic and sparse. The film, despite being executed in a similarly straightforward manner, also wavers between dream and reality, a tasteful performance and improvised outbursts. When examining the film background, the lack of clarity is understandable. The film is a metaphor for a real love affair that had occurred between Kim Min-hee, who plays the actress protagonist Young-hee, and the already married director of the film, Hong Sang-soo. The film was released shortly after their infamous scandal, and just as the film’s stylistic choices mingle the narrative and real fact, Young-hee seems to push the boundary between scripted acting and real revelation.
To the South Korean audience, who violently condemned the adulterous love, the underlying question was glaring: how will Kim Min-hee and Hong Sang-soo justify their relationship? The film, surprisingly, leaves room for interpretation. It is far from being a gimmicky allegory or desperate plea for public sympathy. Instead, it is reminiscent of the primitive driving force behind all cinema: the expression of universal emotions. Cinema, at its core, is both an imitation of the real life and an imposed reduction of reality into something more understandable. By masking unavoidably real people in a metaphysical, semi-fictional setting, the film awakens the audience’s awareness of this intention.
The film invites the audience to become witnesses of an objective documentation of human emotion. Conspicuous zoom shots are a constant reminder that the actors are real human subjects shot on camera, and the blunt dialogue erects a barrier just thick enough to cast a slight emotional distance between the viewer and the film. We are obliged to take a step back and become observers, or perhaps judges, of a quiet cinematic argument. We have the warm satisfaction of having the power to clearly examine the whole situation; we can easily read the emotional context and motives behind the characters’ words and actions, whether it be repeatedly claiming that someone looks older than his age or hurriedly pouring another shot of soju.
Just as we are getting comfortable in this position of power, however, Hong Sang-soo throws in shockingly direct verbal confrontations between the protagonist and other characters. A drunk Young-hee lashes out, violently spitting words across the dining table at her equally drunk accompaniment, declaring, “You can’t love! You are not capable of love and you do not deserve to be loved!” With her outburst, we are abruptly dragged into the heat of the moment and forced to reckon with the full force of unbridled emotion. We are no longer spectators but participants guilty of playing the same messy game of love.
Overall, the film's quiet revelation of human thought suggests a sort of beauty born from conditional ignorance. We are beautiful because we are unaware; despite how the world may seem frightfully simple, we are hopelessly trapped in our inward distresses. It is only when this inner turmoil becomes mute and when one becomes a distant observer, that one is able to then notice a hushed poeticism hiding in daily conversations and actions. Through film, Hong Sang-soo grants us this privilege of lingering on others’ suffering as though we do not suffer from our own. We are, very briefly, gods.
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