In Another Country (film)

In Another Country (Korean: 다른 나라에서; RR: Dareun Naraeseo) is a 2012 South Korean comedy-drama film written and directed by Hong Sang-soo.[1][2] Set in a seaside town, the film consists of three parts that tell the story of three different women, all named Anne and all played by French actress Isabelle Huppert.[3] The film competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10] The film was selected as part of the 2013 Hong Kong International Film Festival.[11]

In Another Country
Theatrical poster
Hangul다른 나라에서
Revised RomanizationDareun Naraeseo
McCune–ReischauerTarŭn Naraesŏ
Directed byHong Sang-soo
Produced byKim Kyeong-hee
Hong Sang-soo
Written byHong Sang-soo
StarringIsabelle Huppert
Yoo Jun-sang
Music byJeong Yong-jin
CinematographyPark Hong-yeol
Ji Yoon-jeong
Edited byHahm Sung-won
Production
company
Jeonwonsa Films
Distributed byJeonwonsa Films
JoseE Films
Release date
  • 21 May 2012 (2012-05-21) (Cannes)
  • 31 May 2012 (2012-05-31) (South Korea)
Running time
89 minutes
CountrySouth Korea
LanguageKorean
English

Plot

The framing story has young film student, Won-joo (Jung Yu-mi) and her mother Park Sook (Youn Yuh-jung) hiding from their debtors in Mohang, a seaside town in Buan, North Jeolla. The bored younger woman sets out to write a screenplay whose plot will use the place they're staying in for the location, but eventually comes up with three variants, using the same basic idea in all of them.

In each case, Won-joo's protagonist is a "charming French visitor" named Anne (Isabelle Huppert): in the first section, she's a famous filmmaker visiting a fellow Korean director Jong-soo (Kwon Hae-hyo) and his very pregnant and jealous wife Geum-hee (Moon So-ri); in the second, she's the wife of a French motor company executive who comes to the same guesthouse to meet her lover, a Korean filmmaker, Moon-soo (Moon Sung-keun); in the third, she's a divorced housewife who arrives with her university lecturer friend Park Soon (again Youn Yuh-jung) for some peace and quiet, after her husband left her for his young Korean secretary.

Issues of infidelity are present in each story, as is a dim but muscular lifeguard (Yoo Jun-sang) whom Anne meets while strolling on the beach and looking (in all three episodes) for a mini-lighthouse.

As each "Anne" interacts with the locals, including Won-joo, who works at Anne's lodging and helps show her around, certain faces, situations and lines of dialogue recur, their effect and implications changing depending on context and delivery.[12][13][14]

Cast

Production

Isabelle Huppert first met Hong Sang-soo at the Paris Cinémathèque in March 2011 at a retrospective of his films. She says, "I think the idea was already in his head, perhaps, the desire to work together."[3]

Seoul, 2011. Huppert's photo exhibition La femme aux portraits (Woman of Many Faces) had just been unveiled and her film Copacabana was released in theaters. The actress came to Korea for the occasion and had meetings with the film directors she had always wanted to meet—namely Park Chan-wook, Lee Chang-dong, Bong Joon-ho, Im Sang-soo and of course, Hong. According to Hong, Huppert's casting happened when they were drinking makgeolli (a brewed Korean rice wine) at a restaurant in Seoul, a place that has often appeared in his films. Not expecting much, and in a casual tone that may have even sounded like a joke, he spoke to Huppert. "I’m about to start a new film. Nothing about it has been decided yet. Would you like to be in it?" Then came an astonishing reaction from her: "Yes!" Huppert replied without even a second of hesitation. "The film came to be what it is now when Isabelle decided to join it," says Hong. At the end of June, she came to Korea by herself to begin filming.[15]

Huppert let herself be transported by a project without a script and was delighted to play the game, traveling to a beach town, Mohang, South Korea, in a very rainy season. "I don’t know all his films, but I think he always works the same way. He starts with the place, finds the people, and only then, writes the script. So it gives an enigmatic cast to everything — and to the way we work. He has a curious, atypical relationship to his film. He’s very exacting, and precise, and there are lots of takes, he’s not ever in a rush," Huppert said. She said she adored working in foreign countries, and the cast and crew "all spoke Korean, and English was the only language I could speak with them; this added to the strangeness. In Korea, I was really alone, and it felt good. It was a very intimate shoot. He’s a director who likes to shoot close up. Only a few weeks of shooting, but he works both fast and slow, in the sense that there are a lot of takes. Each filmmaker has his own rhythm, yet I had the impression that he was very surefooted. He filmed me in profile or from the back, like a figure in the landscape. I love the way he filmed me, just like any other woman in the landscape." Huppert said she loved the adventurous aspect to making this movie. "And adventure is at the vital center of the story."[3]

Reception

Critical reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 83% based on 24 reviews, and an average rating of 6.7/10.[16] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 69 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[17]

Awards and nominations

2012 Buil Film Awards

2012 Grand Bell Awards

See also

References
  1. Jung, Hyun-mok; Cho, Jae-eun (8 June 2012). "Deconstructing Hong: Master of complexity, contradiction in film". Korea JoongAng Daily. Archived from the original on 10 June 2012. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  2. "In Another Country, both pitiable and charming, the 13th film from director HONG Sangsoo". Movieweek via Korean Film Council. 15 June 2012. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  3. Dupont, Joan (18 May 2012). "Isabelle Huppert's South Korean Adventures". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  4. "Festival de Cannes: In Another Country". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 19 April 2012.
  5. "Isabelle Huppert: "Hong Sangsoo's films are finely polished"". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 8 June 2012.
  6. Lee, Claire (20 April 2012). "Im and Hong head to Cannes film fest". The Korea Herald. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  7. Sunwoo, Carla (21 April 2012). "Two Korean films make it to Cannes". Korea JoongAng Daily. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  8. Hwang, Hei-rim (25 April 2012). "Four Korean films at the 65th Cannes Film Festival". Korean Film Council. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  9. "Two Korean Movies in Running for Palme d'Or at Cannes". The Chosun Ilbo. 16 May 2012. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  10. Lee, Claire (17 May 2012). "Im Sang-soo takes disturbing portrait of chaebol to Cannes". The Korea Herald. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  11. "HKIFF Review: In Another Country". HK Neo Reviews. Retrieved 5 April 2013.
  12. "Isabelle Huppert: three times a lady with Hong Sangsoo". festival-cannes.com. Archived from the original on 18 January 2017. Retrieved 8 June 2012.
  13. Fainaru, Dan (21 May 2012). "In Another Country". Screen International. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  14. Young, Neil (21 May 2012). "In Another Country: Cannes Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  15. Jung, Han-seok (16 May 2012). "Korean Films at Cannes 2012 - In Another Country". Korea Cinema Today. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  16. "In Another Country (2013)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
  17. "In Another Country Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
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