Walk Up (2022), directed by Hong Sang-soo. Theater 2 at the Main Cinema, Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, Thursday, April 20.

Hong Sang-soo’s Walk Up will probably be the sole movie I see, from a choice over 120+ films, at this year’s Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival. My friend Kathie programmed and recommended it, and it sounded great, so I went. It’s pretty great. The simple and, at times, surprising story of a film director who takes his grown daughter to visit a woman friend of his who is an interior designer, in order for his daughter to maybe learn something. The friend has a crush on the director from way back. They all meet and talk and drink, and then the man goes out to attend a meeting and asks his daughter to stay behind to continue the conversation. He’ll return shortly. Then we see that over the years he moves into the place, having relationships with women on each different floor.

Not my favorite film of all time, but it’s one of those movies that makes me feel infinitely comfortable. It opens a door to life in a major South Korean city (I don’t know which one) and that’s a lot of fun. It makes me fantasize of visiting Korea and settling in at some rented flat, pausing from my tourism to just sit and read whatever crime novel I brought while the city rolls on outside my open windows. Honestly, I’m sure I will forget a lot of this movie, except perhaps the scene of the director sitting with his girlfriend as they eat lunch on the patio overlooking the town, one, long, unbroken scene of dialogue that isn’t especially dramatic. But it was fascinating, like the movie. I watched it with about ten other people, all older, all festival regulars, some of whom are so disheveled you wonder how they even made it to the theater.