Directed by Hong Sangsoo
Seongjun, a film director who no longer makes films, goes to Seoul to meet a close friend. When the friend doesn't show up, Seongjun begins to wander the city aimlessly. He runs into an actress he used to know, shares a drink with some young film students, then, against his better judgment, heads to his ex-girlfriend's apartment. The next day, he finally meets his friend, has some drinks, shares some conversation, and meets a young woman who looks exactly like his ex-girlfriend. The next day goes very much like the previous day. Through it all Seongjun moves forward, struggling to find a purpose to his trip.
A heartbreaking and hilarious film of repeating patterns and circumstance, The Day He Arrives is a meditation on relationships, filmmaking, and the unknowable forces that govern our lives.
Reviews
~ "A beautiful and melancholy film¡ I fell into a sympathetic reverie with this film. If The Day He Arrives is a comedy, it's a human comedy like Balzac had in mind: a record of how people live, talk, strive and pass their days." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
~ "At his best ¡ª and his new movie, The Day He Arrives, is among his very best ¡ª Hong offers a strange mixture of magic, mystery, rueful melodrama and dry comedy that's like absolutely nothing else." - Andrew O'Hehir, Salon
~ Critics Pick! "An exploration, both playful and rueful, of desire, narrative and the idea beautifully expressed by Faulkner in 'Absalom, Absalom!' that 'maybe nothing ever happens once and is finished.'" - Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
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