Mimang

A sensitive film about the way people and places change, about transience and memory.

The way things go: en route to an appointment, a man accidentally runs into his old love. With slight abashment, they stroll through the streets of Seoul, talking about the past and the city’s transformations. Years later, we see the same woman engaged in an amorous conversation with another man as they walk through the ever-changing metropolis. After another jump of several years, the man from the first episode and the woman meet at a friend’s funeral. And alongside them, always present, is the time they spent apart from each other.

The word ‘mimang’ has various meanings in Korean. Accordingly, this film succeeds in always evoking several things at once: the way people and places change, transience and memory, and last but not least, unlived love – or rather, unlived lives. With echoes of Richard Linklater and Hong Sang-soo, the film was shot over a period of four years.

Director