Sometimes you just know. Before I even hit play I knew this film was meant for me. What did I know about it? Barely a thing. My memory only reminded me that it was about two kids and it was minimalistic in style. Not much to go on. All I actually read on Treeless Mountain was a small bit in The New York Times over a year ago. But I knew then as I held the paper in my hands that this film would perfectly play into my psychosis and that I couldn’t help but love it. Yes, it sounds weird but sometimes you just know.
Jin (Hee-yeon Kim) and Bin (Song-hee Kim) are shuffled off to Big Aunt (Mi-hyang Kim) when their mother (Soo-ah Lee) goes off to find their father. She promises to return and gives them a piggy bank, telling them when they have filled it she’ll be back. Jin, being the eldest, isn’t convinced while Bin eagerly proceeds to fill it by doing chores for Big Aunt. But Big Aunt isn’t the ideal person to raise kids as she is cross and has a bit of a drinking problem. Furthermore, the two are given the run of the neighborhood and aren’t made to do school.
The pair is forced to be far too grown up than they should be. Jin in particular is far too serious and moody for a girl her age. She sees Bin as her responsibility and rarely allows herself to enjoy being a child. Even before their extended stay with Big Aunt, Jin is picking up Bin after school and watching her while their mother is elsewhere. Bin is more of a kid, but dresses herself up as a princess and carries a purse. She’s still a kid, but she tries her best to look like an adult. The film does a good job of not taking their attempts to be grown up too far; the farthest they get into the adult world of economics is selling grasshoppers to fill up the piggy bank.
Therefore, the actor who plays Jin, Hee-yeon Kim, is given quite a demanding job as a fairly young actress. Director So Yong Kim does cheat a bit with some composition and editing that allows him to pull off some of the more demanding acting scenes but for the most part it’s Hee-yeon Kim front and center. She does a good job at being exceedingly brooding throughout the film and for a child actor she’s ridiculously restrained. There are scenes where her entire setting and environment would have any kid smiling and laughing and yet she always manages to be serious and pensive. Her acting carries almost the entire weight of her character’s development as it’s almost all in the gradual shift of her mood.
It might seem odd that a child would be so glum all the time but as we look at the adults that surround this pair maybe it shouldn’t surprise us. Their mother who only appears in a few scenes is a world weary woman. While she is gentle and caring she lacks the exuberant joy and warmth these children need. Jin is infected with this downtrodden mood. When they are handed off to Big Aunt she sees them as liabilities. She almost immediately tires of caring for their day to day needs and whines about their cost and the damage they do. The pair eventually end up with their grandmother by the end and it’s here they get the warmth they need, literally and emotionally.
The real pleasure of this film is in how it captures the idea of being a child. On a simple level it’s in the visuals. A lot of the film is shot lower than the average eye height of the adult, lowering viewers back into the perspective of a child. It’s here that the world is still big enough to be wondrous and large and where a simple pile of rocks can seem like a great mountain. The film both uses wide shot and close ups to create this large world. The wide shots are rarely of anything truly and deeply expansive but everything feels large and immediate. The close ups make some rather average sized items and people seem much larger than they are. And it’s all very subtle. The film never resorts to the very heavily stylized camera techniques of something like Citizen Kane where the figure towers while being filmed from below.
Yet the film also captures those childlike sensibilities in a number of scenes. A lot of moments evoked childhood sensations in my mind. The simplest moment like Jin placing a sticker briefly on her face reminds me of that sticky sensation that was always fun as a kid. The piggy bank is made of that cheap, thin plastic that doesn’t last. It’s not long before they cave in part of the back and are trying to pop it back out. And there’s also this naive, but perfectly sensible, child logic on display. Bin hits upon the perfect scheme to get their mom to come back, but it’s a scheme that would only work in a good world. There are a handful of similar moments throughout the film that serve as a reminder of the little things every kid does as a kid.
So then is the film simply a nostalgia trip? Most certainly not. Anyone who has paid attention this far has probably figured that this isn’t exactly a happy sentimental journey on the filmmakers’ part. The story is steeped in childhood drama. It’s not all that great to be a kid. I mean these kids are hungry on numerous occasions and either have to get food themselves or wait. Having to wait to eat is probably one of the worst things imaginable in my mind, but I’m a male so food is first and foremost in my mind. And burning your fingers roasting grasshoppers so you can see your mom again isn’t exactly the kind of thing I think most people would reminisce about in their later years.
Treeless Mountain isn’t simply something to jog your memory; it stands on its own merit. The exploration of the girl’s reactions to various adults and how they fail to nurture them forces them to turn to each other for certain needs. It works as a simple drama that isn’t out to manipulate your heartstrings. But yes, I’ll concede that a lot of my love for this film is that it is about that feeling of being a kid. It does it without the musical triteness or heavy-handed dramatics of many similar films. It’s about kids and that’s why I love it.
No comments:
Post a Comment