On the Beach At Night Alone

Art imitates life in this quietly devastating masterpiece from Hong Sangsoo. Kim Minhee (The Handmaiden, Right Now, Wrong Then) — in the role that won her the Silver Bear for best actress in Berlin — plays Younghee, an actress reeling in the aftermath of an affair with a married film director. Younghee visits Hamburg then returns to Korea, but as she meets with friends and has her fair share to drink, increasingly startling confessions emerge.

No stranger to mining his own experience for his films, Hong, whose real-life affair with Kim stirred up a media frenzy in Korea, here confronts his personal life with a newfound emotional directness. With an incredibly raw and vulnerable performance from Kim at its center, On the Beach at Night Alone is one of the most dynamic collaborations between director and performer in contemporary cinema.

See Hong’s latest in VIFF: What Does That Nature Say To You

There’s a dark romanticism powering Hong Sangsoo’s furious, tautly controlled, yet coolly comedic drama.

Richard Brody, The New Yorker

As gut-wrenching, funny, and formally freewheeling as anything in recent cinema.

Dan Sullivan, Film Comment

Touchingly direct…The beauty of Hong’s latest lies in how piercingly affecting it feels even if one isn’t aware of the personal circumstances surrounding it.

Kenji Fujishima, Slant