Fiercely empathetic and hauntingly organic, Sang Soo's wintry tragedy with parallel casts, tethered together by Young-hwan, a mysteriously overflowing poet, dares to seek connection in isolation. Characterized aesthetically among his most recent films by its handheld photography and high contrast imagery, Hotel by the River grants us a much more personal look into the lives of its characters who, amidst the empty landscape, stand out starkly in funeral black.
In the film's most profoundly-felt moments, which litter the latter half,…
