A Traveler’s Needs

Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize, 2024 Berlin International Film Festival

Dressed in a straw hat and green cardigan, at first glance Iris gives the look of a retired librarian. Even as she asks her young companion increasingly personal questions, steering the conversation to dark territory, it’s hard to imagine she’s actually the dominant one. But of course you should never, ever underestimate Isabelle Huppert.

In her third collaboration with Hong Sang-soo, Huppert plays a woman whose mix of drinker’s intuition and beguiling spontaneity matches the filmmaker’s own. Over the course of a day, Iris, a penniless French woman in Seoul, makes money and friends through encounters that beg the question – is Iris really a harmless hippy? Or is she a drunk, a seductress, a con artist? As one woman wonders – is she even French?

This being a Hong Sang-soo movie, there are no easy answers – everything about Iris is more mysterious, elliptical, and enigmatic than appears on the surface. And yet, through all her trickiness, the film never forgets Iris’ vulnerability. Because the reality is, as much as people suspect foreigners, it’s travelers who tend to get swindled.

– Lev Kalman