Express At Berlinale: Hong Sang-soo’s woman of mystery

But with this one, the law of diminishing returns seems to have set in. Wanting to teach French to well-to-do Korean families is fine, but not knowing quite how she will go about it — of course Huppert’s Iris isn’t a trained teacher, that would be far too prosaic for a Sang-soo movie – feels like a stretch.

Is she a flirty type, giggling in a high-pitch at the husband, when the wife is out of the frame? Or is it a tic to overcome nervousness in a woman who seems to be making up things as she goes along, throwing back glassfuls of makgeolli, a potent Korean rice wine drink of makgeolli, like a proper little lush?

In a nice by-play of spousal shorthand, the wife signals to the husband that she isn’t very impressed with the teaching methods on display. Earlier, we’ve seen Iris trying to draw out a pretty, poised piano player about how she feels about playing the instrument, and giving her the French equivalent of those sentiments to repeat as a way of learning.

Only one woman, the concerned mother of the young man whose flat Iris has been sharing for the past two months, asks the tough questions. Who is Iris? Where has she come from? Huppert disappears from view, and apparates in a park, smiling. There’s no way that we can stop ourselves from responding, not at the lovely Huppert, but the smile is wiped off pretty soon, left as we are with slender leavings.

‘Matt and Mara’

Building lives out of conversations which seems to have been picked up mid-flow is done beautifully in ‘Matt and Mara’, by Canadian director Kazik Radwanski, which played at Berlinale’s Encounters section. Mara ( Deragh Campbell) is in a rocky place in her marriage with experimental musician Samir ( Mounir Al Shami), the intimacy having clearly worn off in the middle of trying to keep her job as teacher going, with the husband being a stay-at-home dad to their baby.

At work, she spends her time hand-holding potential writers as they spill their callow dreams. At home, it’s the daily drudgery of domesticity. Old acquaintance-and-more Matt ( Matt Johnson) shows up just at the right time. She is ripe for some excitement, and he brings the carefree air of someone who has only himself to take care of, back into her life again. They meet in a cafe, laugh at nothing and everything, and talk, talk, talk. The giddiness of being able to talk to another human deeply is infectious : you want to instantly hit the call button, and do the same thing.

A literary meet — an event where people go only to hook-up, her friend tells Mara– becomes the site where these two circle around each other, to see if they can go further. But then something happens, and the film comes to a standstill in a place fortunate people find themselves if they’ve had a chance to do some growing up. Feckless charmers are all very well for a bit of dalliance, but permanence, whatever that might be, is not made of these.