Ray Pride

(Yeojaneun Namjaui Miraeda) School of the Art Institute graduate Hong Sang-soo directs some of the most compelling movies I know, making intelligent, original Rohmeresque rambles, and "Woman is the Future of Man," taking its title from a poem by Surrealist Louis Aragon, is a worthy successor to "Turning Gate" (2000), the perfect "The Power of Kangwon Province" (1998) and his ineffably played (and titled) debut, "The Day A Pig Fell Into the Well." Hong says his movies are more theorems than dramatic exercises, which would explain how the intersections of his characters evolve, spin and ultimately resolve in the most unexpected and satisfying fashion. Usually, it's a story of twentysomething Korean men alienated from the lives in contemporary Seoul, getting drunk and angry over their relationship with women; "Woman" is a kind of "Carnal Ignorance" as the pretensions of his pair of protagonists--an aspiring filmmaker and a university professor--are slowly peeled away in recollections against a snowy day as we learn the truth about the bar owner they both once dated. Fractured, frank and oddly funny, Hong's narratives live up to the line, "Koreans are too fond of sex. They have nothing better to do." 88m.

"Woman is the Future of Man" plays Sat-Sun, Wed at Siskel.

(2006-09-19)

Also by Ray Pride

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In the run-up to the fall release of Pedro Almodovar's latest, "Volver," Sony Pictures Classics has restored and re-released seven of his films, all being shown at the Music Box
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Mirror Mirror
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The Grand Illusion
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