Written and directed by Hong Sang-soo
Meeting the parents of your partner is one thing, meeting them when you’re well aware there’s a class divide and you’re living in South Korea’s class-conscious society is another. Sweaty palms abound. This proves rich comedic fodder for Hong Sang-soo, who with trademark minimalist production lets the awkwardness unwind and frustration build in this 8-scene play wherein a poet stumbles into meeting his girlfriend’s well-standing family.
Dongwha (Ha Seong-guk) shoots wedding videos on the weekends, but his passion lies in his poetry. It doesn’t make him a lot of money. It doesn’t bother him, he says, adhering to a philosophy where he’s laser-focused on what he deems necessary to have in life, and only strives to provide that. No added material frills.
How that goes down with Oryeong (Kwon hae-hyo), the father of Dongwha’s girlfriend Sunhee (Cho Yun-hee) and the rest of Sunhee’s family, which also counts a pragmatic mother (Park Mi-so) and a depressed older sister (Kang So-yi), is the simple crux of Hong’s lithe film that trades on the bumbling type of funny that pleasant, but probing quality get-to-know-you conversations can have when there’s a known stark divide on principal topics like worldly ambition and feelings towards family.
Because Dongwha isn’t completely without resources. His dad is a famous lawyer, known to Sunhee’s family, but Dongwha’s loathe to talk about him, a sense of estrangement palpable. Contrast this to Oryeong, who designed (and partially built) a grand mansion on a mountainside to take care of his own ailing mother, and now dotes on his daughters and lives in awe of his wife.
Therein lies the deception of Hong’s light-hearted day spent in the company of this family and their guest. Filial relationships, the want for your children’s happiness and the curious line of thinking parents employ in this regard, hard-nosed insistence on personal philosophies that fail to take into account the potential of your growing life – these subjects are not light, they are not whimsical, but Hong has a knack for teasing them out with the bonhomie of civil society.
It’s not all filmmaking alchemy. In a film with strong characters, Sunhee, caught in the middle between her boyfriend and family, is strangely overlooked and underserved. What does she make of all this, the truly all-around invested party? When the binding tissue is an enigma, the body appears uncoordinated.
An extended family drama, a comedy of manners, a movie of pleasantries with the critical gears grinding behind them, What Does That Nature Say To You is an unassuming chuckle that exhales into a philosophical ponder, a pensive look at relationships, family, and the values whereby we consider its expansion.
Mikkel Frederiksen 