FNC 2024: A Traveler’s Needs Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s edition of Montreal’s ‘Festival du Nouveau Cinéma,’ to keep up with our latest coverage, click here

Hong Sang-soo’s A Traveler’s Needs marks his 31st film and third collaboration with Isabelle Huppert following In Another Country and Claire’s Camera. Hong’s persistence in delivering, on average, two films a year for almost a decade and his efforts in directing, writing, producing, shooting, editing, and scoring the entire film create a niche genre solely around his dialogue-driven stories. These stories consist of incredibly nuanced and free-flowing conversations, as if one is a fly on the wall listening to the many social lives of his characters. Hong’s choice to strip away numerous elements that make films a cinematic journey is not a hindrance, as he focuses on a successful formula revolving around social needs, or A Traveler’s Needs in this case.

This film takes place in Korea and follows Iris (Huppert), a French woman living with a young man named Inguk (Ha) as she navigates life as a French teacher. While neither Iris nor her clients are proficient in their opposing languages, Hong uses English as a mediator to build the bridges between them. The lack of focus on teaching French is humorously intriguing, as Iris uses much of her lesson time to socialize with her clients and attempt to relate with them through their personal stories, with neither party making any real effort at a proper lesson.

As conversations unfold with her clients, Iris and audiences understand how similar people can react to a new concept and how different the purpose can be for understanding a new language. While her clients are eager to start learning French, they are not too worried about the specifics and are drawn more to the mysteriousness and peculiarity of Iris, who conclusively serves the purpose as the outside traveler to merely stir interest in the lives of her clients. This is what initially draws Inguk to her, prompting his invitation for her to stay with him despite his mother’s concerns. The people who meet Iris seem less interested in deeply connecting with her and her skills, and more interested in the idea of socializing with an eccentric and enigmatic outsider who is looking for a place of belonging.

In the end, A Traveler’s Needs reinforces Hong Sang-soo’s successful niche formula even after thirty films over almost thirty years. His jack of all trades approach to filmmaking allows him to focus on more personal films that highlight his craft in creating a cozy and wholesome dialogue among his characters. Huppert’s eagerness through Iris’ enigmatic behavior excellently shows how desirable she is to the people she meets through her mysteriousness and the potential opportunities she has to offer through her French teachings. With how often we receive his films in recent years, it is strongly recommended to check out one of his films if they haven’t done so already.

still courtesy of The Cinema Guild

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Costa Christoulas

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