‘In Our Day’ Review: Meditations on the Spice of Life

In another world there’s a Hong Sang-soo Cinematic Universe, where a rabid fandom celebrates the one or two movies every year featuring a revolving door not of familiar superheroes but of poets, filmmakers and actors, each of them contending with questions of life and love rather than planetary threats. Those elements, of artists in quotidian scenarios, drinking soju and smoking amid everyday conversation, are present in many of the small humanist gems that make up this South Korean auteur’s filmography, and the same goes for his latest, “In Our Day.”

The film, as warm and wise as it is simple and languid, follows two separate parties (diptychs are another Hong trademark) across a single afternoon. One involves Sangwon (Kim Min-hee, Hong’s frequent collaborator and offscreen partner), an actress pondering retirement, as she spends the day with her friend and her younger cousin; the other involves Uiju (Ki Joo-bong), an old poet dispensing life lessons in his apartment to two university students, one of whom is filming him for a documentary.

The two story lines don’t cross paths, as they often do in Hong’s films; they are united only by the deployment of a culinary hack: mixing hot pepper paste into ramyun. His gochujang-inflected noodles provide a simple pleasure made all the more satisfying in recent days for Uiju, who, on doctor’s orders, is abstaining from drinking and smoking. But he can’t quite resist on either front, reflecting a sentiment from early in the film when Sangwon, offering up treats to a friend’s cat, says, “What’s the point of living, anyway? Eat your fill.”

It’s a glimmer of existential wisdom buried in the mundane, if you look at it the right way. Most of the film is made up of these moments. Isn’t life like that, too? To search for or expect more would be to court disappointment. “Don’t look for meaning. That’s cowardice,” Uiju tells a young pupil searching desperately for grand answers. “Just jump in the water. Don’t try knowing it all before jumping, like a coward.”

In Our Day
Not rated. In Korean, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. In theaters.