Hill of Freedom

Kwon (Seo Young-hwa) returns to Seoul from a restorative stay in the mountains. She is given a packet of letters left by Mori (Ryo Kase), who has come back from Japan to propose to her. As she walks down a flight of stairs, Kwon drops and scatters the letters, all of which are undated. When she reads them, she has to make sense of the chronology… and so must we. Alternately funny and haunting, Hill of Freedom is a series of disordered scenes based on the letters, echoing the cultural dislocation felt by Mori as he tries to make himself understood in halting English. At what point did he drink himself into a lonely stupor? Did he sleep with the waitress from the Hill of Freedom café (Moon So-ri) before or after he despaired of seeing Kwon again? Sixteen films into a three-decade career, Hong had achieved a rare simplicity in his storytelling, allowing for an ever-increasing psychological richness and complexity. An NYFF52 selection. A Grasshopper Film release.

Watch a special discussion on Hong Sangsoo at our first-ever Members Film Club, plus a never-before-seen archival Q&A of the director discuss Woman on the Beach (now playing!) at the 44th New York Film Festival in 2006. Interested in joining our membership community? Learn more here.

Cinema Guild is making the following Hong Sangsoo titles available to rent on their channel at a discounted price: Grass (2019) $1.99, Hotel by the River (2019) $1.99, The Day After (2018) $0.99, Claire’s Camera (2017) $0.99, On the Beach at Night Alone (2017) $0.99, The Day He Arrives (2011) $0.99.