The UW Cinematheque's free series of view-at-home movies continues this week with another memorably awkward look at modern romance from Hong Sang-soo, Woman on the Beach (2006). One of South Korea's most acclaimed and prolific artists, Hong's work has been showcased over the last two decades at the Cinematheque and the Wisconsin Film Festival. Last month, we provided the opportunity to view Hong's Hill of Freedom at home for free and it is now available here for a rental price, proceeds from which will benefit the Cinematheque.

WOMAN ON THE BEACH (2006, South Korea, 127 min, Korean with English subtitles) A filmmaker travels to a sparsely populated seaside resort town to get some writing done on his next project.  While seeking inspiration, he becomes romantically entangled with a pair of women—first his assistant’s companion, then a second woman who reminds him of the first.  On the surface, this pair of overlapping love triangles appears to be one of Hong’s most breezily conventional films, but embedded within Woman on the Beach’s straightforward story is a trickier web of narrative rhymes and variations—a kind of Vertigo by way of Eric Rohmer—as its characters attempt to overcome their own preconceptions of one another (Mike King). This selection is brought to you in part with the support of UW Madison Center for East Asian Studies.

The Cinematheque has a limited number of free opportunities to view Woman on the Beach at home. To receive your free access, send an email to info@cinema.wisc.edu and simply put the title of the film, Woman on the Beach, in the subject line or the first line of the email.

On a new episode of our Cinematalk podcast, Cinematheque programmers Mike King and Zach Zahos discuss Hong and Woman on the Beach. The episode complements our earlier podcast with Mike King and Professor David Bordwell's in-depth discussion of Hong's career and Hill of Freedom. To listen to this talk on Woman on the Beach, scroll below, or visit Soundcloud here. You can also subscribe to Cinematalk through Apple Podcasts here.