Treeless Mountain: the film

I am still haunted by a quiet minimalist film that I saw last week called "Treeless Mountain"by director So Yong Kim.

Kim,born in Korea (and probably raised in the states), takes us back to her home town in Korea where she has found the most astounding non actor children (5 yrs and 7 yrs. old) to play two girls who are abandoned by their mother. The mother must leave them to live with relatives while she looks for a means of support.

The director doesn't always dwell on the story line which is a simple enough plot.... but the development of the characters was enough to keep us mesmerized. And these two young actors are just simply unforgettable.

Sometimes Kim showed us an evocotive scene of clouds or a "still" landscape to set the mood and help us pause in the story,to set the sense of time passing.

Once, she filmed the girls and their grandmother at a side angle so we missed the action almost entirely. But that somehow was enough to let us in on the intimacy of the situation... as if we could see them without them seeing us. This was arresting....almost a documentary style which I have never seen done.

There are many original, sharply observed details like this throughout the sensitively cadenced story.

Because of the techniques the director used with the children (see" the making of" in dvd), the girls performances were skillfully unsentimental and we could distance ourselves a tiny bit from the ache of their situation.

Despite their circumstances, this film left me oddly hopeful, and I am still, days later... with those little girls.