CLAIRE'S CAMERA
Director: Hong Sang-Soo
70 minutes. South Korea. 2017. Subtitled. Colour. D-Cinema.
Special Screening section, Cannes International Film Festival 2017.
Prolific Korean director Hong Sang-Soo’s cheerful and melancholic character study Claire’s Camera, filmed over 5 days during the 2016 Cannes Film Festival is a reverential bow to the late Eric Rohmer who directed Claire’s Knee (amongst many other films). Music teacher Claire (Isabelle Huppert), with her ever present Polaroid camera arrives in Cannes where her best friend is premièring a film. She strikes up a conversation with Manhee (Kim Min-Hee, On the Beach at Night Alone) a Korean film sales assistant who mysteriously has just been fired by her boss. A chain of events, conversations and chance encounters with strangers, all triggered by Claire’s photos slowly reveal a backstory which on the surface seems unremarkable. Calmly observed through Sang-Soo’s static camera, glittering performances reveal a careful examination of how people converse.
(Notes Marie-Pierre Richard)
