Walk Up

Kwon Hae-hyo and Park Miso

I know some peoples' eyes glaze over when a film is extolled for its physical beauty, but I found Hong Sang-soo's Walk Up to be not only beautiful, but charming and interesting to boot. Nevertheless, Mr. Hong's films, like those of Éric Rohmer, are of limited appeal due to the fact that they are interminable bourgeois talkfests. Walk Up has two scenes of dialogue that each last over ten minutes, with a fixed camera to boot. The action is totally contained with the titular three story apartment building. A film director (Kwon Hae-hyo) and his daughter (Park Miso), as we meet them, are checking it out under the snoopy gaze of the landlord Ms. Kim (Lee Hyeyoung). She, it turns out, is an ex-flame of the director who seems to still have designs upon him. The director seems more interested in landing his daughter a job with Ms. Kim who is an interior decorator. However, fate will lead him to a new love, an estrangement from his daughter, and a crossroads in his career.

Walk Up doesn't take a chronological approach to is narrative. It flits back and forth in time, so we don't comprehend all the character's motivations until the film's conclusion. While this aspect of the film remains cloaked, the film's themes are trumpeted: most specifically art versus commerce. Since Kwon, who has appeared in most of Hong's films, is a stand-in for the director, we know which way that argument is going to go; particularly in a film made with six actors and a skeleton crew. However, the film never descends to solipsism. Mr Kwon's wonderful impersonation of the director shows a great deal of self regard, but the role also functions as a self critique. Every character in Walk Up has his reasons and a unique point of view. The splendor of the black and white cinematography, shot by Hong, shows off the funky modernism of the walk up to smashing effect. The abode looks elegant and lived in which helps the film from becoming too didactic. All of the performers are wonderful, but Mr. Kwon is especially smooth and seamless. The duo of Kwon and Hong have joined such director acting duos as Ford/Wayne and Kurosawa/ Mifune in the pantheon. Certainly, one of 2022's better films.