What Does That Nature Say To You

A meet-the-family dinner shifts from cordial to cringeworthy in the 33rd feature from indefatigable MIFF superstar Hong Sang-soo. Junhee has been dating self-styled bohemian poet Donghwa for three years … but she’s never even mentioned his existence to her family, fearing the disapproval of her father. So Donghwa is well and truly thrown into the deep end when he’s unexpectedly lured to a day at the family’s bucolic lakeside home, where welcoming pleasantries soon give way to quiet judgement and a drunken dinner starts to feel like a cross-examination. One of the world’s most prolific auteurs, Hong Sang-soo has been a MIFF constant from his debut, The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well (MIFF 1997), all the way up to last year’s double bill of By the Stream and A Traveler’s Needs. In true Hong fashion, his latest film starts out as an amiable, ambling portrait of serendipitous encounters and interpersonal dynamics, only to grow sharper with each unfolding chapter and more acidic with each new round of drinks. Whether you’re a Hong completist or a beginner, What Does That Nature Say to You offers an excellent exemplar of his singular cinematic brand. “Builds to a surprisingly weighty climax in a third act which is more confrontational about duplicitous human behaviors than most of [Hong’s] past works.” – IONcinema.com