Right Now, Wrong Then

Over the past quarter century Hong Sangsoo has written and directed on average a film per year. On the surface, these films are more alike than not: conversation pieces about modern relationships, usually zeroing in on ephemeral moments, a brief flirtation over a weekend at a film festival, for instance (many of his movies are about moviemakers). In this, he most closely resembles Eric Rohmer. Yet Hong’s movies are also experimental in their own way, working endless variations on familiar refrains.

Right Now, Wrong Then (2015) is not just a two-parter but actually two films in one, each with its own title. The first is Right Then, Wrong Now: it shows a famous filmmaker (somewhat Hong Sangsoo-like, you might think) killing time in Suwon because he’s accidentally arrived a day early for a Q&A at the local art cinema. Visiting a Joseon Dynasty palace he meets a woman painter and spends the afternoon and evening with her and some of her friends. But everything goes off the boil when the man reveals that he’s married. Next day, his Q&A is a disaster. The second film is Right Now, Wrong Then: it shows the same characters, places and situations. The same, but different. Behaviour takes different turns, especially after drinking, and things turn out very differently. Which of these versions of events can you trust? Neither? Both?

What’s right, what’s wrong in relationships, especially when you’re married and edging towards extramarital sex? By offering two antithetical films in one, Hong explores the gap between thought and deed, between impulse and action, between self-control and letting it all hang out. He also delivers another brilliant and characteristically wry comedy of manners, laced with soju liquor and regrets.

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

An exquisitely intimate reminder that more films (and filmmakers) should prize deep feeling over flash.

Matthew Eng, Little White Lies

Another quiet study on reflections of loneliness, this early union between Sang-soo and muse Kim Min-hee is as effortlessly playful as it is charming.

Nicholas Bell, Ion Cinema

Either hour alone would be a wry, incisive, painful drama at the intersection of art and life, which strain under the burden of personal history. Together, the two parts form a radical fiction about the crucial role of imagination and audacity in intimate experience and filmmaking alike. Hong’s narrative gamesmanship blends artistic bravado with metaphysical wonder and agonized regret.

Richard Brody, New Yorker