Nowhere to Lay My Eyes

Sanghee has not seen her mother for ten years. Now the experimental filmmaker travels with her brother to the holiday island of Jeju, where their mother is leading a new life: with a guesthouse, a new husband and his daughter. The visit becomes a silent trial of strength. The mother wants to bring Sanghee into the family business; the daughter is more interested in her video camera. She wants to make images, not meet expectations. On walks and alcohol-soaked dinners the characters open up and make room for missed chances in life and bitter reproaches.

The Korean critics’ darling Hong Sangsoo is one of those great filmmakers who discover a different truth with every new variation of their cinema. His 35th feature lives on seemingly banal everyday conversations in which family histories lie hidden. But this time Hong opens his familiar spaces a little wider: the lush landscapes of Jeju Island, the light, the paths between the houses become leading characters in a wonderful meditation on seeing itself. Sanghee argues with her stepfather, a documentary filmmaker, about the truth of images, and yet discovers with her camera a freedom that her family does not want to grant her. Kim Minhee plays this with an almost painful restraint and at the same time a freedom that stays with you for a long time. A small, luminous masterpiece about the art of looking at the world with your own eyes.