Direction: Hong Sang-soo
Country: South Korea
As usual, the prolific Korean director Hong Sang-soo brings his realism to the fore in his 24th drama, The Woman Who Ran, a simplistic and quotidian account of three different encounters in the outskirts of Seoul involving a common subject, Gamhee (Sang-soo’s muse Kim Minhee). The latter is a married woman who has never been apart from her translator husband in five years of marriage except for the occasions that this film portray.
At first, she visits her good-natured friend Youngsoon (Seo Younghwa), a divorcee who lives in the countryside and needs time for herself. Youngsoon lives with a roommate, Youngji (Lee Eunmi), and both feed stray cats, a detail that upsets a newly arrived neighbor. The second visit takes her to a fun urban neighborhood where Suyoung (Song Seonmi), a dance producer and pilates teacher, bought an apartment with a view to the Inwangsan Mountain. This friend is emotionally involved with the architect that lives above her, but keeps being stalked by a young poet with whom she had a one-night stand. The third and most painful encounter happens at an independent cinema where she bumps into her former lover, now a famous director, and her ex-friend, Woojin (Kim Saebyuk), who married him.
Clearly, the central topic here is the obsessed idea of living glued to a husband, but there are also past issues in need of inner resolution.
As the natural performances define feelings and shape characters, the film, mounted with incredible sobriety, adopts a minimalistic trait that fully depends on the actors’ proficiency. While the enigmatic title makes us suspect that Gamhee is running from her current life, the static camera work with urgent closeups and languid long takes are never synonym of emotional aridness.
