‘Walk Up’ Review: Hong Sangsoo’s Sly, Silvery Latest is One of His Recent Greatest
variety.comJessica Kiang If ever you’ve glanced into lit-up living rooms while driving down a suburban street at dusk, or glimpsed a neighbor’s apartment over their shoulder when you drop off a package, and found yourself idly wondering not just what the inhabitants’ lives are like, but what maybe your life would be like if you occupied those exotic domestic spaces — well, has mischievous Korean miniaturist Hong Sangsoo made a movie for you. “Walk Up,” the festival darling’s latest benignly sozzled, black-and-white delight, daydreams around that idea, its gentle profundity smuggled in under cover of multilevel playfulness.
The movie is a play on time, on imaginative shoestring filmmaking, and on Hong’s own persona. It’s even a play on words, with its three stories sprouting out from each other over three separate stories of the same Seoul walk-up. “It’s been a long time.
How long has it been?” The first exchange delivers a little puff of amusement for denizens of the Hong Hive (an exclusive club for which “Walk Up” could be the first title in a while to bring in a new recruit or two).
Not only is a strained reunion between long-separated friends a staple beginning for the filmmaker, but there’s a little irony in the fact that for us, it hasn’t been long at all.
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