Why Hope is “the kind of experimentation that cinema needs today”

Interview with South Korean director Na Hong-jin, who devoted ten years to Hope, a monster film combining alien invasion, western and unbridled action. Interview.

FIRST: Ten years have passed since The Strangers. Ten years dedicated to Hope ?
NA HONG-JIN: Yes. Just writing the script took me two years. The design of the creatures takes two or three years of work. Then Covid hit and forced us to stop the process for a long time… But, frankly, I didn’t see the time passing. It’s only since I’m ready to show Hope that people say to me: “Ten years since The Strangers. Amazing ! What happened? » Well… I was working, that’s all.

With its chases between cartoons, westerns and Mad Max, Hope provides pure cinematic euphoria. There was a desire to take the opposite view of The Strangersa more opaque and dark film?
Yes. I wanted to do something more exhilarating, more immediate, more… “easy”, let’s say. But easy in quotes, eh!

Does the film live up to your expectations?
No way ! It doesn’t even come close to what I had imagined… (Laughs.) But that’s always how cinema is. Some scenes disappoint you, others are beyond your expectations. At a glance, I would say that 60 to 70% of the film corresponds to what I had in mind, the rest is unexpected, for good or less good. This is somewhat the case with all my films……