For his first feature of two features this year, Hongsangsoo made a long-awaited reunion with Isabelle Huppert. Following In Another Country and Claire’s Camera, the duo teamed up again for A Traveler’s Needs, one of the prolific director’s best in years. Winner of the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at Berlinale, Cinema Guild will now release the film on November 22 beginning at Film at Lincoln Center and the new trailer has arrived.
Here’s the synopsis: “A comedy of improbable encounters and unlikely language lessons, A Traveler’s Needs marks the third collaboration between Hong and Huppert (following 2012’s In Another Country and 2017’s Claire’s Camera). This time Huppert plays Iris, a woman who finds herself adrift in Seoul and without any means to make ends meet, turns to teaching French via a très peculiar method. Through a series of encounters, as we grow to know more about Iris and her situation, the mysteries of her circumstances only deepen.”
Rory O’Connor said in his review, “A Traveler’s Needs takes place in Seoul and follows a dilettante claiming to be a French teacher (Huppert) who has apparently drummed up a new way to teach the language. Her method involves carrying a small stack of notes, tied up in a rubber band, and waiting for a moment when her client is fully present (either emotionally heightened, for whatever reason, or fresh from playing a musical instrument). She then takes a note from the stack and translates their description of the experience from English to French, all in the hope that they might absorb the language through some kind of hokey, emotional osmosis. She also has a fondness for makgeolli (which seems to have replaced soju as Hong’s spirit of choice), claiming to drink three bottles of the milky rice wine a day. When she shows her earnings to her boyfriend, he can’t believe it. Is she the real deal or a boozy con artist? Who’s to know.”
See the trailer below.
