Beyond the Multiplex

"Woman on the Beach": A wistful comic romance from the Eric Rohmer of East Asia
As A.O. Scott observed in the New York Times two years ago, the South Korean writer-director Hong Sang-soo belongs to a growing category of international filmmaker: the accomplished master whose work has been shown all over the world, but remains almost unknown in the U.S. Korea alone offers an entire regiment of such directors: Sure, there's a tiny fan base that's obsessed with Park Chan-wook's "Vengeance" trilogy, and Bong Joon-ho's monster movie "The Host" was a modest art-house hit last year. But how many Americans have ever seen anything by such film-festival favorites as Kim Ki-duk or Lee Chang-dong (who made this year's Cannes sensation "Secret Sunshine," still without U.S. distribution) or Im Kwon-taek (director of 100 films, or so claims IMDB)?

I first saw Hong's dry, wry, difficult-to-capture comedy "Woman on the Beach" at the 2006 New York Film Festival, and only after revisiting it a second time do I feel confident enough to fit that description to it. Hong has been compared to Eric Rohmer, the French master of low-key, ordinary-life comedies, and if such shorthand comparisons are inherently unfair, this one fits pretty well. Certainly the rambling, episodic plot of "Woman on the Beach," which follows a group of discontented artistic types to an out-of-season resort on Korea's western coast, feels like something Rohmer would pursue. So also does the offhand, deceptively casual nature of the filmmaking, which partly veils a subtle and careful blend of humor, romantic loss and existential mystery.

A filmmaker universally referred to as "Director Kim" (Kim Joong-rae) drags his nerdy, sycophantic buddy Chang-wook (Kim Tae-woo) along to the beach town, in hopes of breaking his writer's block. But Chang-wook brings along Moon-sook (the Korean TV starlet Ko Hyun-joung), an attractive young woman who may be his girlfriend and may not (their views on this question seem to differ). Director Kim is exactly the kind of narcissistic artist who sees this situation as a challenge, but his customary blend of rakish-shithead behavior yields a series of unpredictable consequences.

Against the gray, largely abandoned landscape of the beach town, Hong unfolds a tale that sometimes feels like "Jules and Jim," sometimes like "Vertigo" and sometimes like a showbiz satire. It's not easy to sympathize with Director Kim, who is entirely responsible for the romantic triangle's implosion and his own unhappiness, but then again I'm not sure Hong wants us to. Kim's going to get something out of the situation -- maybe a new girlfriend, maybe some much needed time to reflect on his own misdeeds, maybe a less crappy screenplay. Out in the audience, we've been treated to a marvelously acted and memorably atmospheric picture.

"Woman on the Beach" is now playing at Film Forum in New York. Other cities may follow. DVD release from New Yorker Films is forthcoming.

Fast forward: "Times and Winds" offers a haunting vision of rural Turkey; "Liberty Kid" follows George W. Bush's war into the streets of Brooklyn
Speaking of unknown directors, description fails me almost utterly when it comes to Turkish director Reha Erdem's picture "Times and Winds," which has wowed audiences at numerous film festivals and finally finds a tiny theatrical release this week. If I tell you that it's a lovely, lyrical film about children's lives in a remote Turkish village, with long contemplative shots of natural beauty, that sends you in one direction. If I haul out comparisons to art-house heavyweights like Abbas Kiarostami and Theo Angelopoulos, that may send you in another. Let's say that from the first frames of "Times and Winds" I felt completely captivated, and that Erdem's shots of curtains blowing in a window, or three men having an argument in a field, have a hypnotic power that's not easily summarized.

"Times and Winds" follows three children, aged around 12 or 13, as they begin to grasp elements of adult life. One hates his father, or believes he does, and schemes to kill him. One girl, after watching horses coupling in a field, has begun to grasp the horrible outlines of biological reality. Another boy is hopelessly enamored of his attractive young schoolteacher. Erdem's constructed reality feels authentic but timeless; the movie could be set yesterday or 40 years ago, although the clothing (and the near-total absence of technology) suggest the latter. I suspect that Erdem has a point to make about rural Turkish society, or more likely a complicated set of perspectives that would make sense if I understood it better. But "Times and Winds" is not a message movie. It wraps you in a world of discovery and heartbreak. (Opens Jan. 11 at Anthology Film Archives in New York and Jan. 25 at Facets Cinemathèque in Chicago, with more cities, and DVD release, to follow.)

There may have been two or three dozen American films that struggled to make sense of 9/11 and its aftermath, but none of them have done more with less than "Liberty Kid," the second feature from New York writer-director Ilya Chaiken (her first film, "Margarita Happy Hour," premiered at Sundance seven years ago). It's a simple story, engagingly told, wonderfully acted and shot with an eye for the beauty of the Big Apple's unglamorous outer-borough neighborhoods.

Odalis, aka Derrick (played by the tremendously likable Al Thompson), is a Dominican immigrant who sometimes passes for African-American, depending on prevailing conditions. Along with his best buddy Tico (Kareem Saviñon), Derrick loses his job slinging hot dogs at the Statue of Liberty after the 9/11 attacks, and the duo follow different paths through the crime-ridden streets of South Williamsburg.

Chaiken relies on a time-honored dramatic structure here, but I think that's the film's strength. Derrick is the reliable guy with dreams and aspirations, while Tico is the charming ladykiller with his eye on the here and now. One of them ends up in the military and the other in jail, but Chaiken is not trying to moralize, and the consequences and trajectories of both men's lives remain ambiguous. This terrific little indie may or may not propel its director and stars to bigger things, but it's yet another good, no-budget work from New York indie kingpin Larry Fessenden and his production company, Glass Eye Pix. Give that man a MacArthur fellowship? Or at least some damn money. (Now playing at the Pioneer Theater in New York.)

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