‘The Woman Who Ran’ is an enigmatic and intriguing visual story

While most films take you by the hand and lead you into their story, Hong Sangsoo’s “The Woman Who Ran” feels like it simply turns on. Without any setup or exposition, you find yourself in the rural outskirts of Seoul watching a woman, Young-soon, as she gardens alone in the quiet country air.

A few minutes later, her friend Gamhee arrives. Gamhee is surprised that Youngsoon knew she had arrived, and Youngsoon explains that she saw her on their closed-circuit TV security cameras. This marks the beginning of many times the film emphasizes video surveillance. It isn’t anything significant to the plot as much as it is an integral part of the film’s atmosphere and ethos.

The film is so subtle and understated that it comes off as confusing at first. You’re not sure what point is trying to be made with the meandering, intimate conversation between these women and the straightforward, still compositions that are interrupted only by overt zoom-ins. For a film that feels so staunchly naturalistic, it’s the last thing you would expect.

These surprising zooms are only emphasized by the sparse edits. Dramatically, they almost replace them. Each scene is shot in a simple wide or medium frame, and the only visual manipulation comes from the zooms, directing your attention to the emotion of one particular character. When the edit finally comes, it either serves to change location or as something of a chapter break.

This style is almost anything but cinematic, leaving the audience to wonder what the director’s intention is here. But as the story again reminds the audience of the surveillance within this world, all of these subtle elements begin to make sense.

Hong wants the audience to be almost uncomfortably aware of the camera as an observer, not unlike a surveillance camera. By the stripping away of flashy style, compositions or edits, the invasive nature of the camera is made apparent to the audience – something that most directors try to hide as much as possible.

This sensation of surveilling the film’s characters is thematically tied in by the central tenet of the plot. It is Gamhee’s first time being away from her husband in more than five years of marriage. She explains that her husband says it is natural for people who love each other to always be with each other, but the audience can’t help but feel the husband’s assumed insecurity as his wife is left on her own and unmonitored for these few days.

The film is marked by the general absence of men. When one does appear, he does so on a doorstep with a surprise visit. The first man asks Gamhee’s friends if they will stop feeding the stray cats. The second arrives seeking romance and acceptance from another of Gamhee’s friends. Neither can take no for an answer.

What first comes off as effortless directing is eventually understood to be a meticulous withholding of cinema’s traditional and comforting romanticized presentation of its subjects.

What results is an enigmatic, intriguing and refreshing take on visual storytelling that any cinephile must experience.