Grass | Hong Sang-soo | NYFF 2018
South Korean director Hong Sang-soo and his prolific pace are no stranger to the New York Film Festival, with the director seemingly finding a way onto the main slate every year since I’ve been covering it.
Aside from a few films, not many have resonated with me in the same way that they have for others and it seems that Grass is not the film that will help change this perception for me.
Grass, his second film of this festival, is a small and simple tale (as are all of his films). Once again shot in black and white, the hub of the film is a cafe with a variety of characters that the director turns his focus on.
Led by frequent Hong collaborator Kim Min-hee as a woman who eavesdrops on the other inhabitants of this coffee shop as she toys around on her MacBook. Various conversations about romance and failed relationships, and of course, plenty of free-flowing liquids, of both caffeine and alcoholic kind.
Hong’s films often feel so minimal and slight to the point of them feeling like a faded memory or dream that you never were that engaged with and this encounter is no different. While the craft is there and the performances are all “fine,” there’s nothing to grab a hold of here that sticks with you.
Mercifully, at 66-minutes, Grass is a brief encounter. It comes and goes, as do these characters, but there’s never anything of substance to hold onto. Nothing that resonates. Nothing that seems to really matter.
Join the conversation