Two little Korean girls are the stars of this intimate drama of childhood. “Conveys the joys, worries and hurts of early childhood with keen poignancy and barely a speck of sentimentality.” — Eye Weekly
Treeless Mountain conveys the joys, worries and hurts of early childhood with keen poignancy and barely a speck of sentimentality.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2009
Treeless Mountain 2008
Using a breathlessly attentive telephoto lens that her tiny subjects seem never to have noticed, American-Korean director So Yong Kim (In Between Days) draws us uncannily closely into the imaginative worlds of two little Korean girls, aged six and four. When their mother is evicted from their city apartment and heads away to track down their father, Jin and little Bin are deposited with a series of less citified relations. With a tender, observant eye for their interaction, Kim shows us the stories the sisters invent and inhabit together as they adapt to repeated abandonment and constant changes in their circumstances. What could easily play for pathos is instead an eloquently cinematic appreciation of children's capacity to deal with the mystery of adult behaviour. — BG
“No director working today captures girlhood better than So Yong Kim... Treeless Mountain is simply one of the best films about childhood ever made.” — Melissa Anderson, Village Voice