Domangchin yeoja (2020)'s activity

Despite its minimalism - stark, naturalistic conversations, sometimes assisted by a cheap camera zoom - The Woman Who Ran is a subtle and absorbing piece of Korean cinema. Kim Min-hee (The Handmaiden) plays Gam-hee, a woman who, during her husband's business trip, visits three old friends. Repetitions in each chapter act like poetic rhymes and make us double back to what we know, or think we know, of Gam-hee's story. If she is the Woman Who Ran, did she run from these friends, this life? Or is she running NOW? Clues wrapped in ironies lead us to wonder, given what we apprehend late in the film, what she was thinking in certain moments, no doubt comparing her friends' lives to her own. Each chapter includes an awkward door scene, none more cringe-worthy than the first (with the robber cat), so I particularly love that one. My favorite IRONY is when one friend questions whether her own husband is insincere, going around the country repeating the same things at book events, followed by Gam-hee repeating word for word something she used in an earlier conversation. It's all theater of the banal, but somehow resonates. What I first thought was inexpensive (not to say cheap) indie slice of life soon grew on me as the lead character was brought to life.