Critics reviews

Hong abstracts the tense network of fragile relationships to crisp, briskly sketched lines that he adorns with bubbly and self-deprecating humor as well as graceful wonders (including some of the most heartbreaking snowflakes in recent cinema). In Hong's ardent view, tenderness, nostalgia, joy, and the promise of creation are the rewards of wide-eyed bewilderment: the adventures and misadventures of an idle filmmaker are nothing if not a script on the wing.

...The Day He Arrives rewards careful scrutiny, revealing its immense depth only after close inspection. What seems arbitrary or merely a function of naturalism—not only the conversational nature of the dialogue, but the film's drifting, almost lackadaisical pace—ultimately proves to be the product of a deliberate, precisely calibrated structure, one whose exactness accounts for not only the overall architecture of the narrative, but, more impressively, each individual shot, cut and zoom.

If ever a movie warranted a video essay to help break it down, this is the film, because so much of what makes it so beguiling is bound to pass over one's head, at least upon an initial viewing, as was my experience. Much of the film's delights come from a sense of disorientation, as moments seem to recur again and again, though in slight variations from one to the next, leading one to continually ask, "Didn't I see that before?

...Hong leaves a trail of auteurist markers in his characteristically wry and melancholic The Day He Arrives: the many references to the cold (indicating his taste for winter or inclement weather); Ozu-like shots of street posts and restaurant signs (and that enigmatic interjection of the net overhanging a batting range, almost a "pillow shot"); a dog (here gone missing); and the promiscuous use of the shot long abjured by most modernist directors, the zoom.

Mr. Hong, whose films include “Turning Gate,” handles all this with a deceptively casual touch, humor and his customary lack of visual fuss, initially calling attention to his presence only with a periodic, punctuating pan or zoom. His characters wallow, but he doesn’t, and his film feels as light as “Marienbad” feels heavy.

“I saw my limits,” says Sungjoon of his retreat from active life. “It’s the same thing as finding yourself.” Something similar could be said of Hong’s filmmaking—the specificity of his subject matter gives his seemingly inconsequential films an unaccountable power.

We’re not meant to decode this kind of abstract ambiguity, but to immerse ourselves in it until we fully share Sungjoon’s existential predicament. That’s par for the course with Hong; ultimately, it’s energizing to realize that there is no exit.