[CRITICAL] HILL OF FREEDOM – Penelopethemovie

HILL OF FREEDOM was seen to be in partnership with the Cinema Comoedia of lyon

Being a total novice in the cinema of Hong Sang-Soo, it’s difficult for me to attach the film to the rest of its films. So I can not judge that what I perceive… To know a very nice movie, simple but never simplistic, soft, delicate, and even stimulating.

The pitch is so ultra-simple :

Mori is a japanese who came to Seoul to try to revisit a past love.

It is the image of this scenario post-it combined with a certain sensitivity to things simple is genius. I’m going to attempt to describe the essence, although this is also a slight spoiler.

First scene:

a woman receives in the post office a packet of letters; it begins to read. They tell the story of the finish on the floor Korean, japanese Mori, who has come to Seoul to revisit a past love. The recipient of the letters, guess t-there. Snaps into place, therefore the true beginning of the story, in the form of flashbacks illustrating the reading.

Nothing very original, except perhaps the aesthetic quasi-documentary (plans and fixed cameras, image DV, zoom / dézooms inappropriate and anti-immersive strengthening at the end of a side voyeur coherent) used by Hong Sang-Soo to capture these moments. That, and these omnipresent but quite unbearable piano notes.

Second scene:

Apparently ill, the woman stumbles down the stairs and lets out the famous letters “doors to enter into the memories of Mori“. She will pick them up… But in the mess ! (she’ll forget it even)

And the film to continue as if nothing had happened, to illustrate the reading by the flashbacks.

HILL OF FREEDOM, by this sleight-of a disconcerting simplicity, encourages the spectator to be attentive to details, to understand what he sees. What could otherwise be a linear story of love lost is mute in the diving ethnologico-romantic in the intimacy of this small neighborhood in Seoul. Because more than the purpose, it is the moment that counts, that takes the value. Each scene becomes a micro-climax, since it prints – always with Mori at the centre of its own issues.

As for Mori himself, who “starts” a new life made of different forums, and all singular, as for the other characters – intrigued and eager to understand this stranger, but continuing, nevertheless, their daily. The viewer is also prompted to redial and decipher the ins and outs of this plot.

The language and the decryption are also at the centre of the film; Mori is a japanese exiled to Korea, not speaking the local language, and speaking exclusively in English. The English is also used by all the protagonists in addition to their native language, but it is never a hindrance to the understanding and transmission of emotions !

Thus, even the most simple of pleasantries will hide a very thought-provoking deep (one thinks of the very heavy history between Japan and Korea) in the same way that it is easy to hide behind the “simplicity” of English words (time, love, etc) to avoid actually communicating. Up to us to decipher all of this, placed in the same situation as Mori, that is to say, a look is culturally foreign but curious.

“The film cache in an apparent simplicity, and unexpected depth”

In short, HILL OF FREEDOM, I was completely touched by its apparent simplicity disguising a delicate complexity.

I can’t wait to see other films of Hong Sang-Soo, and discover a little more of an author clearly gifted to do spend a lot of things with little.

Georgeslechameau

INFORMATION

• Original title : Jayuui Eondeok

• Achievement : Sang-soo Hong

• Scenario : Sang-soo Hong

• Main actors : Ryo Kase, Sori Moon, Young-hwa Seo

• Country of origin : South Korea

• Released : July 8, 2015

• Duration : 1h6min

• Distributor : Les Acacias

• Synopsis : Mori, a young japanese, goes to Seoul to find the woman he loves. But the latter is absent. Waiting for his return, he settled in a guest room and various meetings.

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