In utmost simplicity

Navnee Likhi

South Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo’s The Woman Who Ran is an unassuming tale of a middle-aged, quiet and bored married woman Gamhee, who is a florist in Seoul. Her husband is out of town for a business trip and it is for the first time in five years of their married life that Gamhee is away from him. She decides to visit her friends.

The film has a playful and amateurish quality to it and shows smart women dealing with smart, annoying men. Its core lies is the conversations between these women who reminisce old times and open old wounds in the process. Gamhee sees a potential different version of herself in all three friends — one married to her ex and the other two living in circumstances Gamhee digests with a little envy. As they discuss food and duality of mind and body, one gets a peek into the complex emotional lives of these women who engage in small talk but don’t expose themselves.

Gamhee first visits the bespectacled, weary-looking Youngsoon, who has recently divorced her husband. They talk about love, real estate, vegetarianism, roosters… Youngsoon’s affable roommate, Youngzji, is an expert in grilling meat and loves cats. Their conversation is interrupted by her neighbour who wants Youngzji to stop feeding a stray cat on account of his wife’s phobia of the animal. But his request is met with abject dismay.

Gamhee’s visit to her second friend, Suyoung, is baggier but follows the pattern of pow-wow of her visit to her first friend. Suyoung tells Gamhee about being bothered by a pushy young poet who doesn’t stop wooing her even after she has rejected him. Suyoung wants to know whether Gamhee is happy in her married life.

Halfway through the film, however, it remains a mystery as to who the titular woman could be and what is ‘she’ running away from?

Towards the end, Gamhee goes to an art house theater and accidentally runs into an estranged friend, Woojin, who works there and is married to a famous novelist whom Gamhee once dated. The encounter is more pronounced and it becomes clear that the two are not intimate friends. Gamhee apologises to her about their past friction. These scenes of niceties have been shot with great aesthetic sense. The background score was composed by the director on his phone; the music plays only during transitions though. The cinematography by Kum Su-min is subtle. Kim Min-hee plays Gamhee with natural grace, every movement standing out — be it bringing meat to her lips or stirring a spoon in a China cup.