TIFF Review: Treeless Mountain

September 18th, 2008 by emcdonald · 6 Comments · Film Festival, Reviews ·

Treeless Mountain: Opening Date: n/a; TRAILER: n/a; ACCOMPLICES: Official Site

The Charge
The story of a precocious journey to maturity.

Opening Statement
Two tiny sisters, one destitute mother, one drunken street hustling aunt and two farmland grandparents… you’ve either got Thanksgiving at my house, or So Yong Kim’s Treeless Mountain.

Facts of the Case
Jin and Bin are two very young sisters living in South Korea with their Mother Soo-ah Lee. Jin is a bright girl and a good student with a knack for winning all of her friend’s pogs. Bin is too young for school and spends her days in daycare. Soo-ah Lee… well you never really find out what Soo-ah Lee does, other than get beat up and left by her husband. The three live in a small apartment and it quickly becomes apparent that there are financial problems. Soo-ah Lee loves her daughters but cannot afford to take care of them so she sets out to find their derelict father. Jin and Bin are shipped off to their Aunt’s in another city to live with her while Soo-ah tries to find her husband.

Things go from bad to worse when the girls realize that their Aunt cares little about them and has no intention of taking care of them for long. Shortly after their arrival at their Aunt’s home, they are taken to their Grandparents in the country. They spend their time doing chores with their grand-mother, playing and one could argue, growing up. Life is quiet and the girls stay optimistic about their mother returning to take them back to the city so they can be a family again.

The end. No really, that’s how abrupt it was.

The Evidence
I wasn’t sure what to think when I sat down for the TIFF 2008 debut screening of So Yong Kim’s second film Treeless Mountain. I had never heard of her or her first movie In Between Days, released in 2006. I make a point of going to see films that I’ve never heard of because four out of ten times I stumble upon something brilliant. The rest of the time is split evenly between awful to good films. Treeless Mountain falls closer to the good side, but there were a number of things that seemed to be missing.

I was actually surprised to find out that this was So Yong Kim’s second film because it really feels like a first time effort. Nearly the entire film was shot in extreme close up of the girls. There are very few shots or scenes where the viewer is able to see anything other than what is directly behind Jin or Bin and while this might make for an interesting theory about how small and insular the lives of these two little girls, it becomes harder and harder to stay interested in a film about a young girl’s face. I feel somewhat ashamed to admit it, but I actually fell asleep for about five minutes. An argument that has been bandied around is that this method helps us to see the world through Jin’s eyes, which makes less sense because we don’t actually see any of the world around Jin. If the film was shot in an extreme wide shot to show vast amounts of space and one tiny little girl, this might help to re-enforce the idea that she is small and helpless in the big bad world around her. No such luck though.

Perhaps then, this is a coming of age drama about two young girls forced to come to terms with the reality that the only people they can trust are themselves, despite them hanging on to their dreams of a loving future with their Mother? Time is an abstract concept in this film, so it’s hard to tell just how long Soo-ah has been gone. The only time keeping device used in the film is a small piggy bank given to the girls by their mother which becomes moot shortly thereafter.

The film was shot well and has a warm organic look to it. The characters look tired and run down like life has really handed them the dirty end but they make due and struggle on with their meager possessions. All and all this film gives an interesting look into South Korean life and what it must be like for those in the city that are just barely scraping by.

Closing Statement
I want to say more good things about this film because I genuinely believe it was worth watching, but I just can’t get past the perspective used to shoot 90% of the film. I would suggest renting this one if you happen to see it on the shelf at your local, but I wouldn’t encourage searching high and low to find a copy.

The Verdict
It is the court’s ruling that this film be sent to VOD and straight to DVD release. The defendant is found guilty of gratuitous cropping of shots and is ordered to shoot her entire next film with fish-eye lenses.

6/10

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Tags: drama·korean·TIFF·toronto international film festival·treeless mountain

6 responses so far ↓

1 Wern // Feb 13, 2009 at 7:05 pm

well your last sentence was funny but otherwise your criticism would be more valuable if it wouldnt come from the cookiecutter kindergarten film school of criticism
2 brett // Apr 23, 2009 at 6:53 pm

Really looking forward to seeing this movie, which is rare for a tearjerker drama, the trailer has me excited. Also way happy to see that they used “Layers” by Asobi Seksu as the soundtrack to the trailer – such a lush and dreamy tune that fits the mood perfectly.

You can check out the trailer at : http://displacedbrett.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/asobi-seksu-in-treeless-mountains-trailer/
3 Dustin // May 3, 2009 at 10:40 am

This review is lame and holds no water.

Treeless Mountain was a masterpiece and I cannot say one bad thing about it.
4 Filmmaker Magazine // May 6, 2009 at 12:03 pm

Read the interview between Kelly Reichardt (Wendy and Lucy) and So Young Kim in the Spring 2009 issue of Filmmaker magazine.
5 David Newsom // Jun 3, 2010 at 11:33 am

You are an idiot. Splendid job completely missing an astonishing piece of cinema. Good lord, I hope this is a volunteer gig.
6 The judge // Jun 3, 2010 at 3:41 pm

What part did I miss exactly David? Was it the part where I said the film was shot well? Maybe the part where I said it was a compelling story of loss and heartbreak that teaches two young girls that they can only count on themselves to survive? Was it the part where I said that it gives an interesting look into the life of people that are less fortunate for moving out of a rural area in favour of the “big city life” only to end up on the same farm one generation later?

Was that the film that I missed? Because that was what I said the film was about. I must be wrong though and it isn’t worth watching like I said it was. At least according to the other people that thought it was easier to make a snide comment instead of asking an intelligent question.

You must have better insight into the world of media being the highly trained faceless whiner that you are. Where as I license and distribute tv and film for a living for a company that posted two billion dollars in sales last year. I couldn’t possibly know anything about what it takes to make a good film.

If any of you had actually read my review, you would have noticed that at no time did I say this wasn’t a good film. It just isn’t a great film.

To attack my intelligence because I don’t share the same ball washing sycophantic love for a film is pretty sad Dave. You might want to watch out if declaration 29 goes through. Something tells me you might like kids a little too much.