(2011) dir Hong Sang-soo w/Jun-Sang Yu, Sang Jung Kim, Seon-mi Song, Bo-kyung Kim [79 min] In this charming new film from one of Korea’s leading directors, a lapsed filmmaker, Seongjun, arrives in Seoul to meet a close friend. When the friend doesn’t show up, Seongjun wanders the city aimlessly. He runs into an actress he used to know, shares a drink with some film students and, against his better judgment, heads to his ex-girlfriend’s apartment. The next day goes very much like the last; Seongjun meets the actress, has drinks with friends, and falls for a woman who looks remarkably like his ex-girlfriend (the same actress in dual roles). Each new day plays out like a flimsy copy of the previous one, akin to a film being remade over and over, but only Seongjun knows why. Infused with a playfulness and dry wit that recalls the films of Woody Allen and Eric Rohmer, THE DAY HE ARRIVES is a delightful meditation on relationships, filmmaking, and the unknowable forces that govern our lives.
Please Note: Due to an issue at the film distributor, a 35mm print was not available in time for our screenings. Consequently, THE DAY HE ARRIVES will screen as a digital presentation. We regret any inconvenience. (Updated Thursday, July 19)
“At his best — and his new movie, THE DAY HE ARRIVES, is among his very best — Hong offers a strange mixture of magic, mystery, rueful melodrama and dry comedy that’s like absolutely nothing else.” – Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com
“Longing and regret, artistic frustration and new hope, self-revelation and self-loathing arise from loopy coincidences, tough reunions, and urban street poetry in this delicate romantic comedy…” – Richard Brody, The New YorkerRead the Review»
“THE DAY HE ARRIVES has real force and its experimentation is in the service of a moving story about a man who, as he says at the start, has nowhere to go. And so he returns to a bar, a woman and situations that are always the same and yet always different — snow falls during one kiss but not another — playing a director whose life resembles a movie he keeps remaking.” – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
The Day He Arrives (북촌 방향)
Area Premiere July 20–22
Buy Tickets Brattle Passes OK
(2011) dir Hong Sang-soo w/Jun-Sang Yu, Sang Jung Kim, Seon-mi Song, Bo-kyung Kim [79 min]
In this charming new film from one of Korea’s leading directors, a lapsed filmmaker, Seongjun, arrives in Seoul to meet a close friend. When the friend doesn’t show up, Seongjun wanders the city aimlessly. He runs into an actress he used to know, shares a drink with some film students and, against his better judgment, heads to his ex-girlfriend’s apartment. The next day goes very much like the last; Seongjun meets the actress, has drinks with friends, and falls for a woman who looks remarkably like his ex-girlfriend (the same actress in dual roles). Each new day plays out like a flimsy copy of the previous one, akin to a film being remade over and over, but only Seongjun knows why. Infused with a playfulness and dry wit that recalls the films of Woody Allen and Eric Rohmer, THE DAY HE ARRIVES is a delightful meditation on relationships, filmmaking, and the unknowable forces that govern our lives.
Please Note: Due to an issue at the film distributor, a 35mm print was not available in time for our screenings. Consequently, THE DAY HE ARRIVES will screen as a digital presentation. We regret any inconvenience. (Updated Thursday, July 19)