
Hotel by the River
56th New York Film Festival
September 28 - October 14, 2018
Two tales overlap and intersect at a riverside hotel in Hong Sangsoo’s affecting examination of family, mortality, and the ways in which we attempt to heal wounds old and fresh.
Two tales intersect at a riverside hotel: an elderly poet (Ki Joo-bong), invited to stay there for free by the owner, summons his two estranged sons, sensing his life drawing to a close; and a young woman (Kim Min-hee) nursing a recently broken heart is visited by a friend who tries to console her. At times these threads overlap, at others they run tantalizingly close to each other. Using a stark black-and-white palette and handheld cinematography (with frequent DP Kim Hyung-ku), Hong crafts an affecting examination of family, mortality, and the ways in which we attempt to heal wounds old and fresh. An NYFF56 selection. A Cinema Guild release.
One finds everything that is worth cherishing about this filmmaker’s evolving, self-recycling, self-referential oeuvre.
— Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, The A.V. Club
One of Hong Sang-soo’s most mature and emotionally rich films.
—Joshua Brunsting, CriterionCast
One of Hong's most unexpectedly poignant works.
—Ben Kenigsberg, The New York Times





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