{"id":5944,"date":"2026-08-15T12:04:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T12:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5944"},"modified":"2026-08-15T12:04:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T12:04:42","slug":"nowhere-to-lay-my-eyes-review-kim-minhee-once-more-gives-a-melancholy-masterclass-in-a-hong-sangsoo-miniature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5944","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Nowhere to Lay My Eyes\u2019 Review: Kim Minhee Once More Gives a Melancholy Masterclass in a Hong Sangsoo Miniature"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<!-- do not apply CSS styles to this element! --><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\n\tThe death-and-taxes certainty of Hong Sangsoo\u2018s filmography \u2014 comparable to Woody Allen\u2019s prime career run in its regularity, consistency and recurrence of ideas and actors across a gently varying tonal spectrum \u2014 has lately been infused with some mild unpredictability. Earlier this year, his Berlinale premiere \u201cThe Day She Returns\u201d continued an occasional experimental jag in which story and imagery alike are left out of focus; the forbidding title \u201cNowhere to Lay My Eyes\u201d might hint at more of the same. Instead, the director\u2019s 35th feature is as classically and welcomingly Hong as it gets: a brief, bittersweet comedy of familial distance and personal drift, crisply and candidly shot, and built around a marvelous performance of quiet, more-than-meets-the-eye feeling by his partner and longtime muse Kim Minhee. <\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5943\">\u2018A Chocolate Christmas,\u2019 a Brazilian Holiday Romantic Drama, Set to Shoot in Gramado and New York From December<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\tThat last asset hasn\u2019t been a given of late: Though the \u201cHandmaiden\u201d star has been exclusively a member of Hong\u2019s company since 2017, she has served a number of Hong\u2019s films in supporting or even off-camera roles. \u201cNowhere to Lay My Eyes\u201d is Kim\u2019s most rewarding showcase in several years, very much taking its atmospheric cues from her porous, watchful melancholy as a performer, while the presence of other Hong regulars \u2014 notably the trusty Kwon Haehyo, again in something of a proxy role for the auteur himself \u2014 in the tight ensemble gives the film a comforting gang\u2019s-all-here air, along with a dry seam of humor. <\/p>\n<p>\n\tStill, there are strains of deeper sadness and discomfort here, largely in the passive-aggressive tension between Kim\u2019s character and her onscreen mother (superbly played by a new recuit, veteran TV star Choi Myeonggil). The film is slim \u2014 just 72 minutes \u2014 but it sticks. Following it Locarno competition premiere, \u201cNowhere to Lay My Eyes\u201d will next play in the main slate of the New York Film Festival alongside \u201cThe Day She Returns.\u201d Both will be released in North America by Hong\u2019s regular distributor The Cinema Guild; at this point the director may not be minting that many arthouse converts, but the new film will be warmly embraced by the faithful.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tBy day, Sanghee (Kim) works for an importer of foreign snack products, but she moonlights as an experimental filmmaker, posting her poetically ruminative shorts on YouTube. This life balance between art and commerce suits her fine, though it\u2019s swiftly picked apart by her mother (Choi), who sees little value in her daughter\u2019s job or her hobby. She could play nicer, considering the two women haven\u2019t seen each other in a decade: Having been mostly raised by her grandparents after her parents\u2019 divorce, Sanghee feels no great kinship with her mom, but hopes a weekend visit to the latter\u2019s new home on the remote, picturesque Jeju Island might rebuild some bridges.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5941\">Ur\u0161a Menart Recalls Finding Inspiration on Influencers\u2019 Fake Tragic Life Stories for Intimate Dramedy \u2018Everything That\u2019s Wrong With You\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\tTraveling from Seoul, Sanghee is accompanied by her brother (Shin Seokho), whom her mother treats with markedly more respect. Her mother, meanwhile, is backed up by her second husband (Kwon), a mild-mannered documentary filmmaker whose profession gives his wife yet more ammunition in her smiling disparagement of Sanghee. A restaurant owner who has recently renovated a holiday rental cottage adjoining her property, the older woman has a metric for personal success that doesn\u2019t prioritize personal contentment. Sanghee does have support, however, from her younger stepsister (Park Miso), a shy aspiring artist who admires both her films and her principles; if only Sanghee liked her more.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tOver two days of meals, walks and (this being a typical Hong work) slightly excessive drinking, these awkwardly assembled relatives spar softly without (this being a typical Hong work) making much drama of it. The substance here is in the film\u2019s pointed observation of their various coping strategies, blind spots and small, satisfying moments of release. The running conversation between them roves from European furniture quality to opposing modes of documentary practice \u2014 Sanghee, like Hong, is prolific and off-the-cuff in her filming, while her stepfather patiently nurtures longterm projects \u2014 to, in a rare topical diversion for the filmmaker, the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tBeneath it all, of course, what they\u2019re really talking about is their own respective flavors of loneliness and regret and occasional bliss; \u201cNowhere to Lay My Eyes\u201d takes interest and even pleasure in all of these, as well as in the throwaway highlights \u2014 a great noodle soup, a perfect accidental pratfall \u2014  of even the most fraught day. Minhee\u2019s economical performance is beautifully attuned to those alternately profound and superficial concerns, as her face works hard to contain Sanghee\u2019s simultaneous amusement and disappointment at this pleasant, awful weekend, while her sporadic voiceover betrays the more lyrically wounded woman within. That narration is a less usual Hong feature, but a successful one: Even on his most quintessential form, the director can find small, sly ways to surprise us.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=5939\">\u2018VisionQuest\u2019 Trailer: Paul Bettany and James Spader Return as Vision and Ultron in \u2018WandaVision\u2019 Trilogy Finale<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<h2>\n<p>\t\t\u2018Nowhere to Lay My Eyes\u2019 Review: Kim Minhee Once More Gives a Melancholy Masterclass in a Hong Sangsoo Miniature<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<h2>\n<p>\t\tReviewed at Locarno Film Festival (International Competition), Aug. 9, 2026. Running time: 72 MIN. (Original title: &#8220;Nun Dul Dega Eomne&#8221;)<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<strong>Production:<\/strong><br \/>\n(South Korea) A Jeonwonsa Film Co. production. (World sales: Finecut, Seoul.) Producer: Hong Sangsoo.\t\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n<strong>Crew:<\/strong><br \/>\nDirector, screenplay, camera, editor, music: Hong Sangsoo.\t\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n<strong>With:<\/strong><br \/>\nKim Minhee, Choi Myeonggil, Kwon Haehyo, Shin Seokho, Park Miso. \t\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In &#8216;Nowhere to Lay My Eyes,&#8217; Kim Minhee&#8217;s richly expressive minimalism fills all the blanks in director Hong Sangsoo&#8217;s typically lean screenplay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4149,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3364,4622,1508,3365],"class_list":["post-5944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-hong-sangsoo","tag-kim-minhee","tag-locarno-film-festival","tag-nowhere-to-lay-my-eyes"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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