The Woman Who Ran
逃げた女
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Three visits to three women while a husband is away; the men only ever appear from behind.
Gam-hee has been married for five years, and in all that time she and her husband have not spent a single day apart. While he is away on a business trip, she goes to see three women on the outskirts of Seoul.
The first is Young-soon, an older friend who is divorced and lives with a younger woman, Young-ji, in a house with a small garden. They grill meat, drink makgeolli and talk about the marriage Young-soon left and the chickens next door. A man who has moved in nearby comes to ask them, politely and with rising hostility, to stop feeding the stray cats because his wife is afraid of them. The women answer that cats are living things too. Gam-hee tells Young-soon, as she will tell each friend, that her husband says people who love each other should always be together.
The second is Su-young, a single Pilates instructor with money of her own, who has fallen for an architect living downstairs, a married man separated from his wife. A young poet she slept with once, when she was drunk, comes to her door and begs to be let in to talk. She calls him a stalker and sends him away.
The third meeting is an accident. At an independent cinema where she has gone to see a film, Gam-hee runs into Woo-jin, who works there. Woo-jin is married to Mr Jung, a writer who is now famous and who was once Gam-hee's boyfriend, and she apologises to her again and again. Jung is at the cinema that day to give a talk about his book, and Gam-hee meets him by chance where people go to smoke. The conversation is stiff and brief, and she leaves. Outside, she changes her mind, goes back into the cinema, and sits watching a film of the sea.
Starring
Kim Min-heeas Gam-hee
A woman who has not spent a day apart from her husband in five years of marriage, visiting three friends while he is away.
Gam-hee’s story
Gam-hee has cut her hair short, and with her husband away on business she is apart from him for the first time in five years of marriage. At Young-soon's she eats meat and drinks makgeolli, and at night watches on a security monitor as her friend goes out to comfort a young neighbour. At each visit she says the same thing: she and her husband have never spent a day apart, because he says people who love each other should always be together. Asked by Su-young whether she really loves him, she says she does not know. At the cinema Woo-jin apologises again and again for marrying Mr Jung, and Gam-hee says she hardly remembers. Outside, Mr Jung asks if she has come to see him. She says no, walks away, then turns back to watch the film again.
Seo Young-hwaas Young-soon
Gam-hee's divorced older friend, who lives with a younger woman on the edge of the city and feeds the stray cats.
Song Seon-mias Su-young
A single Pilates instructor who is drawn to a separated neighbour and turns away a young poet at her door.
Kim Sae-byukas Woo-jin
An old friend who works at an independent cinema and married the writer who was once Gam-hee's boyfriend.
Kwon Hae-hyoas Mr Jung
A successful writer, Woo-jin's husband and Gam-hee's former boyfriend, whom she runs into outside the cinema.
Why it matters
The Woman Who Ran is about how much goes unsaid between women who like each other. Gam-hee tells each friend that she and her husband have not spent a day apart in five years, and that people who love each other should always be together; the more she repeats it, the less it sounds like happiness and the more like a script. Her friends have made other arrangements, a divorce, a single life, a marriage to the man who was once Gam-hee's, and each visit is interrupted by a man who wants something at the door: a neighbour, a spurned lover, a famous writer. Hong Sang-soo won the Silver Bear for Best Director at Berlin with it in 2020. The question in its title, who ran and from what, is never answered. The film only lets Gam-hee walk out of an awkward conversation and back into a dark cinema, to look at the sea.