Isabelle Huppert Set To Be Stripped Bare By Hong Sang-soo

Some auteurs grace cinephiles with their gifts only about has frequently as there are national elections (or if you’re Terrence Malick, with the election of each new pope), and then there are guys like Hong Sang-soo, whose personal agenda seems to be: appear in as many major film festivals as possible until they cease to exist. Having just debuted one of his very best features, The Day He Arrives, in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section last May, he’s now back to work on a new feature – though who’s to say that he doesn’t already have another new one in the can? Perhaps responding to some lazy criticisms that his filmography is getting too homogeneous, this time he’s reigned in French ice princess (not to mention Cannes 2009 jury president) Isabelle Huppert, whose presence will surely introduce an unfamiliar element to the mix. While this Huppert/Hong collaboration is currently top secret, it is expected to be ready to hit the festival circuit in the latter half of this year — of course it is.

Gist: While everything is under wraps (typical of Hong’s features), one can presume that the thematic material in this one won’t deviate too much from his usual concerns, i.e. love triangles (squares, pentagons, and so forth), filmmaking and creative processes, and kimchi eating. Look out for another of his clever structural conceits, too; they can be doozies.

Worth Mentioning: The casting of Huppert – who has recently completed Captured, a film by the comparably prolific Filipino filmmaker Brillante Mendoza – sees the continuation of a recent trend of quality European actresses branching out with revered Asian filmmakers: Tilda Swinton with Apichatpong Weerasethakul, as well as Juliette Binoche with Hou Hsiao-hsien and an upcoming role for Jia Zhang-ke, to name a few. Huppert has already worked with Haneke, Chabrol, Assayas in the last dozen years – to name a small handful of the European masters on her résumé – and is clearly eying total world domination, if these latest projects are anything to go by.

Do We Care?: Hell yes we care. With a Venice slot as one of the few remaining options for a 2011 festival berth, this has the ability to be the second one-two, Cannes-Venice punch in a row for Hong. He is a filmmaker who is always interesting, readjusting the Rubik’s Cube of his concerns into exciting new configurations with every new project. He is quite possibly this generation’s Rohmer, and to see him coupled with such a fine actress means that if there were ever a Hong film to get excited about, and possibly broaden his audience to a size more proportional to his talent, it is this one.