Iris, a woman abroad in Seoul, teaches French and English in an idiosyncratic fashion that allows her to pursue her own philosophical and personal interests. Through four encounters over a single day, Iris probes students and strangers for information about poetry, their own histories, and their relationship to their egos.
Rated 3.5 / 5 from 1 log on Katalog
What do I love so much about Isabelle Huppert? Aside from 50+ years of consistent and hard work in the film industry (the devil works hard, but Isabelle Huppert works harder) it’s the fact that after all this time, she doesn’t pursue vanity or cash grab projects. Huppert pursues such a diverse array of endeavours that it’s completely reasonable to assume that there is an irrepressible drive in her to do films that interest and inspire her. Take this film, for example. Are there any Hollywood actors that appear in obscure, lower budget South Korean films about a foreigner adrift in Korea - teaching language and finding joy and beauty in a different country? The premise of A Traveler’s Needs is simple, and the film itself was a breezy 90 minutes of interactions between supposed (watch it and you’ll understand) French teacher Iris and some locals in Korea who seem to share a similar vision of life as her. This was certainly a slower film, but I appreciated its clean and simple story, its lighter meditation on cross-cultural interactions, and the glorious Huppert.
