Direction: Hong Sang-soo
Country: South Korea
In A Traveler’s Needs, another peculiar drama by Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo, a solitary French woman—aptly portrayed by Isabelle Huppert—teaches French in Seoul using unconventional methods, while her unknown past remains a mystery. Although she shows interest in her students’ feelings and emotions, she maintains an insouciant attitude, drinking makgeolli—a fermented rice alcoholic beverage—throughout the day. Frequently bored, her behavior is often perplexing as we try to decipher her motives.
This fleeting fable carries a certain poetic quality and an insinuating sense of adventure, but gradually loses momentum, becoming increasingly formulaic. It’s a fascinating cross-cultural experiment that eventually runs itself into the ground, recycling Sang-soo’s familiar patterns of conversational interaction.
Huppert and Sang-soo’s third collaboration—following In Another Country (2012) and Claire’s Camera (2017)—is the weakest of the trio, an occasionally charming yet underdeveloped ode to friendship that meanders without clear direction. In truth, A Traveler’s Needs feels like an acting exercise stretched to feature length, with the multi-faceted Sang-soo handling direction, screenplay, cinematography, production, editing, and score.
