Like You Know it All + On the Beach at Night Alone

6:30 Like You Know it All (126m)
Something like a dose of mortification and misadventure, Like You Know It All follows a hapless movie director invited to serve on a film-festival jury. True to the title (drawn from Hong’s customarily candid dialogue), the young filmmaker jousts with friends old and new in a tragicomic examination of self-absorption, wayward sexual impulses, and all manner of misbehavior. Amidst the soju-fueled blackouts, inappropriate confessions, and ill-advised sallies across the gender divide, Like You Know It All coheres into yet another complex, surprising, and moving work.

8:45 On the Beach at Night Alone (101m)
Hong’s movies have always invited autobiographical readings, and his 19th feature is perhaps his most achingly personal film, a steel-nerved, clear-eyed response to the tabloid frenzy that erupted in South Korea over his relationship with actress Kim Minhee. The film begins in Hamburg, where actress Young-hee (played by Kim herself, who won the Best Actress prize at Berlin for this role) is hiding out after the revelation of her affair with a married filmmaker. Back in Korea, a series of encounters shed light on Young-hee’s volatile state, as she slips in and out of melancholic reflection and dreams. Centered on Kim’s astonishingly layered performance, On the Beach at Night Alone is the work of a master mining new emotional depths.