The Upcoming
  • Cinema & Tv
    • Movie reviews
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Show reviews
  • Music
    • Live music
  • Food & Drinks
    • News & Features
    • Restaurant & bar reviews
    • Interviews & Recipes
  • Theatre
  • Art
  • Travel & Lifestyle
  • Literature
  • Fashion & Beauty
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Competitions
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

Cannes Film Festival 2012

Da-reun na-ra-e-suh (In Another Country)

Cannes Film Festival 2012: Da-reun na-ra-e-suh (In Another Country) | Review
25 May 2012
Ruta Buciunaite
Avatar
Ruta Buciunaite
25 May 2012

Hong Sang-soo, one of the most established auteur’s in contemporary Korean cinema, began his career with an astounding debut of The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well in 1996. Twelve films later, he brings to Cannes Competition his In Another Country, a laid-back three-act transnational comedy with only two weapons to fight for our sympathy: the innocent humour arising from cultural differences and, easy to guess, Isabelle Huppert, the only foreign actress in the picture. 

The framework of the story is neat, simple and film-referential: a young film student Wonju and her mother run away from the seaside town of Mohang in order to escape their mounting debt. To calm her nerves, the girl starts writing three successive versions of the same story of a middle-aged French woman Anne (Huppert) who visits Mekong. The first Anne is a successful film director, trying to prevent her colleague director Jong-Soo hitting on her in front of his jealous wife Kumhee. The second one is about a wealthy married woman who came to Mohang to visit her lover. The third Anne is a rich housewife coming to Mekong after her divorce, to seek spiritual advice from a monk and figure out how to start her life anew. All three stories also feature a young sexy lifeguard (Jun-Sang Yu), who is always keen to have a holiday romance with the curious foreigner. 

Koreans’ inability to correctly express themselves in English provokes many situations that are all too familiar for people who travel a lot and quite funny at the start. However, the more repetitive the film gets over depicting the rituals of Isabelle’s arrival and establishing her new character’s situation (each time, in the same way), the more irritating the film becomes. Since it is already clear that there is no real outcome to the story that is, within the film, invented as a film, there is nothing to incite our curiosity and sitting through the second part of the film becomes a struggle. 

The humour also wears out quickly and Isabelle, although providing exactly what is required of her and practically carrying the whole picture on her shoulders, can’t help but look and act too intelligent for the role she is put in. It is too clear that in this picture, she has no equal-weight counterparts, no-one to act against and is only used to raise the market value of the film. Her fans, of course, will love it, but In Another Country is nowhere near as good as Captive which puts Isabelle in a similar role, alone in a foreign situation, or Amour which also features in this year’s competition, but uses her more for the back-up.

This is a film to watch if you want something easy.

★★★★★

Ruta Buciunaite

Watch the trailer for In Another Country here

Related Itemsreview

More in Cannes

Marcel!

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

More than Ever (Plus que Jamais)

★★★★★
Matthew McMillan
Read More

Plan 75

★★★★★
Selina Sondermann
Read More

Enys Men

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

The Stranger

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

Corsage

★★★★★
Matthew McMillan
Read More

One Fine Morning (Un Beau Matin)

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

The Eight Mountains (Le Otto Montagne)

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

Eo (Hi-Han)

★★★★★
Selina Sondermann
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap
  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Albert Adrià reopens Enigma on 7 June as a “fun-dining” restaurant and cocktail bar
    Food & Drinks
  • The Road Dance
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Paolo Nutini at the 100 Club
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Crimes of the Future: Three new clips from David Cronenberg’s dystopian body horror film
    Cannes
  • When You Finish Saving the World
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Marcel!
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • More than Ever (Plus que Jamais)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Plan 75
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Enys Men
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • The Stranger
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • More than Ever (Plus que Jamais)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Plan 75
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Dirty Dancing the Movie in concert at Apollo Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Feminine Power: The Divine to the Demonic at the British Museum
    ★★★★★
    Art
  • Eo (Hi-Han)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why
With the support from:
International driving license

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Cannes Film Festival 2012: După Dealuri (Beyond the Hills) | Review
Cannes Film Festival 2012: 7 Days in Havana | Review