The Day He Arrives // The Time Image

Hong Sang-soo, 2011, 79 mins

A film professor travels to Seoul to meet an old colleague and ends up lingering in a small northern neighborhood, where conversations, group meals, and chance encounters begin to repeat across three days. In The Day He Arrives, Korean master filmmaker Hong Sang-soo reshapes everyday interactions into something quietly strange, letting time loop, stall, and subtly shift rather than move forward in a straight line.

Part of The Time Image screening series, this is an ideal entry point for anyone curious about films that work through duration instead of plot. Light on its feet, often funny, and just 79 minutes long, the film invites you to notice how meaning emerges through repetition, hesitation, and the small differences that appear when we think we are reliving the same moment again.

The Time Image celebrates narrative deconstruction and alternative approaches to filmmaking, showcasing independent and guerrilla-style cinema that challenges conventional storytelling.

Named after French philosopher Gilles Deleuze's concept of the "time image," the series draws from his distinction between two modes of cinema. While the "movement image" propels viewers through cause-and-effect narratives where action drives the story forward, the "time image" asks viewers to dwell in moments, experience duration directly, and engage with memory, contemplation, and the gaps between events. In time image films, characters often observe rather than act, and meaning emerges through temporal layering rather than plot progression.

Previously known as Mumblecore Madness, the series has been reframed through Deleuze's philosophical lens. While "mumblecore" suggested a specific aesthetic, The Time Image better captures our broader focus.

Featuring selections from various countries and eras, The Time Image invites audiences to embrace cinema that resists easy resolution and celebrates the richness of human connection.

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Host or Publisher Stray Cat Film Center