Treeless Mountain
Directed by So Yong Kim
At Film Forum April 22-May 5
Runtime: 89 min.
In So Yong Kim’s Treeless Mountain, childhood innocence translates into a cinematic language. The movie follows two juvenile girls abandoned by their mother in South Korea, virtually unaware of the parental irresponsibility at the root of their conundrum. The wide-eyed, 6-year-old Jin and her younger sister Bin are dropped at a crabby aunt’s house by their reckless mother. After being shifted over to their provincial grandparents, the children grow increasingly isolated from the world around them.
The contrast between earlier scenes in which Jin performs well in school despite her mother’s disinterest, and later moments featuring the duo’s disconnected life, highlight the connection between familial ties and social integration. Jin isn’t forced to become a good student, but given the environment to do so, she excels. Once stripped of that stability, she struggles to apply her intelligence to raising her clueless sibling. The remarkably controlled performances by Hee Yeon Kim and Song Hee Kim contain an infectious fragility, suggesting the girls only understand as much as their roles require.
Deeply rooted in the perspectives of its ill-fated heroines, Treeless Mountain finds a place in the modern abandoned-child narratives alongside Ramin Bahrani's Chop Shop and the inferior period piece Blame It On Fidel. These movies favor low-situated camera angles to highlight their protagonists’ limited perspective of the world, while sympathizing and appreciating the unhindered simplicity at the root of the child's gaze. Beneath its dry, arty exterior, however, Treeless Mountain hides the traditions of the classic orphan story. There’s a little bit of Little Orphan Annie in Jin, who struggles as a street salesgirl and tries to break free of the illusion that her mother will return. Steeped in symbolism, the movie offers ongoing hints at Jin's greater desires, even as they remain unspoken. She keeps a piggy bank, dreamily watches the clouds roll by, and playfully impales grasshoppers on a stick. Watching the insects frolic, she observes that "they are having fun before they die," and seems to understand the sentiment too well.
Although So Yong Kim's visual style has pointed resonance, the lyricism is essentially one-note because of its subjective limitations. How much one can sympathize with the plight of Jin and Bin depends on the viewer's personal assessment of the situation, rather than the young characters' understanding of it. The filmmaker successfully invades their world, but never allows for an exit strategy.
