Just In: A Traveler’s Needs: Isabelle Huppert Leads Hong Sang-soo’s Latest Enigma

2/5 stars

Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo returns to the Berlin International Film Festival with his latest film A Traveler’s Needs, another modestly scaled piece – albeit this time featuring that icon of world cinema, Isabelle Huppert.

Despite Huppert’s presence, there is no discernible change in style from a director who might be dubbed a master of inaction.

Huppert plays Iris, a mystery woman in Korea. When we first meet her, she is teaching a young woman French, which seems to be her way of supporting herself in the country.

Dressed in a distinct green cardigan, straw hat and summer dress, she uses a cassette recorder to aid her work and has a habit of inquiring about the woman’s innermost feelings. Soon, formalities give way and she is drinking the Korean alcoholic drink makgeolli with her client and the woman’s husband.

At the film’s halfway point, she returns to a flat where she meets a young Korean man, Inguk (Ha Seong-guk), with whom she seems to be in some kind of relationship. Are they friends or is it something more?

Isabelle Huppert (left) and Kim Seung-yun in a still from A Traveler’s Needs. Photo: Jeonwonsa Film Co

As soon as Inguk’s mother finds out, however, this causes consternation. “Who is she?” comes the concerned cry. “You don’t know anything about her!” It’s about the only time temperatures are raised in this otherwise emotionally muted film.

Is Iris conniving or an opportunist? What is Hong suggesting? That perhaps we can never really know anyone.

That seems to be the implication, and it is something Huppert plays up with a typically enigmatic, aloof performance. When we see her towards the end, sitting on a park bench impishly playing a child’s recorder, we are none the wiser about her character’s background or her past.

Ha Seong-guk (left) and Isabelle Huppert in a still from A Traveler’s Needs. Photo: Jeonwonsa Film Co

Along the way, there are blissful moments. Korean poems are recited – one even carved splendidly in a rock-shaped monument – and lend the film its emotional and spiritual backbone. But largely A Traveler’s Needs is an opaque, frustrating experience, even if it is less experimental than Hong’s 2023 effort In Water, where much of the film was deliberately out of focus.

Naturally, the participation of Huppert will draw eyes onto the film, but you cannot help but feel that Hong could have used her more dynamically. At one point, she giggles and winks, excited by the Korean booze she is supping. Such a strange moment in a film full of them.

Hong’s hardcore fan base may be appeased, but at best this feels like a pencil sketch that has been left unfinished.

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