On the Beach at Night Alone competed in the 67th Berlin International Film Festival, awarding Kim Minhee the top prize for acting, the Silver Bear for Best Actress.
Director and performer come together amidst a whirlwind of their highly publicized affair, recreating on screen a semi-autobiographical depiction of their tabloid-bombarded relationship. Director Hong Sang Soo and actress Kim Minhee first came together in 2015, while collaborating on Hong’s film, Right Now, Wrong Then. Their extramarital affair has since then caused a media sensation in Korea.
On the Beach at Night Alone is a sort of byproduct of the aftermath of their affair. Kim Minhee plays an arguably fictionalized version of herself by the name Younghee, a famous Korean actress who has fled Seoul, South Korea in order to escape the negative attention from her recent affair with a married director. The presence of the elusive director lingers throughout the film; he is constantly being alluded to, not only by Younghee but also by all of her acquaintances.
The first chapter of the movie follows Younghee as she sentimentalizes over the foreignness of the German city of Hamburg. The film is dense with dialogue; characters often dwell on mundane, inconsequential, and irrelevant subjects. They ponder why a stranger seems to be blushing, or about the health of a local bookstore keeper—perhaps in an attempt to capture a sense of idleness, but the result seems excessively prosaic and humorless. When Younghee and others are not quietly contemplating over such trivialities, they often speak abstractly of love: of its superficiality, deceptiveness, and its self-entrapping nature. Younghee struggles to come to terms with the unattainable idea of love, having been exposed to such a turbulent and public relationship with a married man.
The first chapter is disrupted by movie credits, and the second chapter begins with Younghee sitting in an empty theater watching the credits roll by, with her own name credited, as if witnessing the closing of her own movie. There’s something sinisterly meta about the vision: the actress’s reality and her role as a performer blends into ambiguity. Kim Minhee and Younghee’s identities become morphed and distorted. The actress is playing a role that mirrors her own life.
The second chapter is set halfway across the world in Gangneung, South Korea, a beach town located northwest of the country’s capital. At the theater in Gangneung, Younghee runs into an old acquaintance; who, after awkward remarks about the “rumors” of her affair, invites her over for coffee at his cafe. More idle dialogue transpires between various characters, reminiscent of overhearing fragments of a conversation in a public space. The characters’ exchanges never amount to anything even remotely consequential: a characteristic of Hong’s style. Everything about the film is retrained and muted in a sense that there is no plot or climax. What we receive is a myriad of characters interacting with one another that resembles the subtleties and insignificance of everyday interactions.
Younghee’s internal conflict and torment is revealed only after she has had liberal amounts of alcohol. When she is intoxicated, she bursts into screams about the falsity of love and men. She can only truly express her frustrations and sadness when she and everybody else around her are inebriated. She reveals a side of her that she hides so well under her charming appearance: one that is ugly, cynical, and caustic, but nevertheless the most honest.
