On the Beach at Night Alone – Bamui haebyun-eoseo honja (2017)

Directed by: Hong Sang-soo | 101 minutes | drama | Actors: Kim Min-hee, Seo Young-hwa, Kwon Hae-hyo, Jeong Jae-young

After a broken relationship with a well-known director, South Korean Young-hee is looking for meaning and a new future perspective. That journey, both literally and metaphorically, begins in Hamburg, Germany, far away from home and hearth. Although the love between the young woman and her older lover seemed genuine, she has always felt doubts about his devotion. She has never experienced complete surrender. Yet somehow she has the feeling that the man may just show up in Germany. To declare her eternal love. But is she ready to commit herself to him forever?

She discusses all this with a compatriot. The woman, who is somewhat older, has also fled her home country. To a stalled marriage this time. It is not entirely clear what their mutual relationship is. But that they need each other to dispel their loneliness, yes. But soon Young-hee, working as an actress in everyday life, realizes that this life isn’t perfect either. That the other woman has hidden her desires towards the opposite sex somewhere deep in the caverns of the subconscious is not the solution for her. The future is a blank slate, who knows what or who might come her way. Absolute freedom, also in a sexual sense, is all she wants. Independent and emancipated, the actress tries to continue her path to happiness.

But the hunger remains. In the evasion of a fixed future, all roads are open. The search for a better life therefore becomes an endless quest that will always be accompanied by doubt. The Hamburg decor, full of melancholic film music, conforms to that hopeless desolation. This is partly because the decor is just that: a background. The camera is mostly still, drawing all attention to the many dialogues. Those backgrounds are not entirely meaningless, however. In addition to immobility, they also show the chilly winter cold of the northern German port city. It should be clear: Young-hee is frozen in her unlimited freedom.

Then, after about half an hour, the scenery shifts from Germany to the South Korean seaside resort of Gangneung. In the next shot, Young-hee is sitting in an otherwise empty movie theater. What did she just watch? Just a movie? A film by her former sweetheart, the director? Or has she seen the same as the viewer may have just done, as a reflection on her own life? Like a film within film, where the dividing wall with reality is naturally on the thin side. Because it’s no coincidence that Min-hee Kim, the actress who plays Young-hee, has had a seemingly hotly debated relationship with “On the Beach at Night Alone” director Hong Sang-soo in real life.

Although the South Korean decor is warmer in color, Young-hee’s sensitive search remains just as syrupy. When she comes out of the abandoned cinema, she finds people she didn’t know she had met before. The detachment is complete. Her life dilemmas are always and everywhere. Location and time are secondary. Love, and the desire for it, is not based on reason. It is universal, hard to grasp but always slumbering. Life is so full of trials, but in the end they aren’t just for Young-hee. Sooner or later everyone will have to deal with it.