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Sunday, September 17, 2023

TREELESS MOUNTAIN / NA-MOO-EOBS-NEUN SAN (2008)

Korean-born director So Yong Kim, now in rotation on prestige international streamers, began with small indies like this startlingly fine DOGME style film on two little girls shuttled from Mom to Aunt to Grandparents after Dad leaves the family flat.  Or so we assume, the film never tells us anything the girls don’t know.  Jin and Bin, about 5 and 7, but looking far younger, are left largely on their own during the day while Mom looks for work?; raises cash for food & rent?; tries to contact her estranged/missing husband?  They don’t really know and neither do we.  Amusing themselves on the streets with local kids, they don’t appear to be enrolled in school or any sort of program, they’re fiercely loyal to each other when not fiercely fighting each other.  But when Mom reaches her limit, she drops them at her sister-in-law’s small apartment and takes off in hopes of reconnecting with her missing husband.  Auntie not exactly the mothering type (neither helicopter nor tiger!), yet the children, who feel abandoned, adjust in their own way to her hands-off approach, meeting kids around the neighborhood and raising cash to fill a piggy bank by catching and roasting grasshoppers to sell to other kids.  (Mom’s told them when the piggy bank is filled with coins, she’ll return home.)  But after getting used to this new situation, they’re cast off yet again when Auntie leaves them with her parents out in the country.  Granddad none too pleased; Grandma a bit gruff, but the closest thing to a warm personality in here.  Again, the kids bicker, stand together, and adjust.  Two tiny survivors at whatever is thrown at them.  A ‘downer’ storyline that’s somehow hopeful and enlightening showing how children cope.  Kim makes this all completely believable and, in spite of their treatment, uplifting.  The two girls infinitely resourceful and charming; the older one also strikingly lovely.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *In his delightful kid ensemble piece, SMALL CHANGE/’76, François Truffaut argues it can be an advantage to be disadvantaged as a child.  It certainly was for him.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/small-change-1976.html

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