Woman Is the Future of Man

Writer and director Hong Sang-soo is an icon of slice-of-life cinema from South Korea. His work is a master class in capturing the human condition in all its raw, unpretty, oftentimes uneventful glory. He’s able to paint his protagonists in shades of gray without them seeming dull. They simply are, and the life that happens around them forces them into colors that require attention – reds, blues, bruise purple, blinding yellow. While the stories themselves are unsensational, the intricate attention to character study earns the auteur an iconic status among the peninsula’s pantheon of iconic filmmakers, pushing the boundaries of comfort for an oddly conservative industry. With AFS’s Essential Cinema series-starter Woman Is the Future of Man (2004), Hong takes mundane conversation and forces viewers to lean into the various meanings and avenues those conversations take. – Cy White