Treeless Mountain by So Yong Kim

In Treeless Mountain, nothing that is not part of Jin’s world is of any interest. The camera is always very close to the six-year-old protagonist, who most of the time is with her younger sister. This is the greatest strength of the movie: knowing how to go deep into Jin’s vision of what’s happening. And there are two totally different Jins: one at the beginning, with a normal life, going to school in Seoul; and another at the end, living on her grandparent’s farm after months away from her mother, having to carry on with life by herself.

We know that the movie has achieved its goal when we only realise these deep changes in Jin after the end of the screening. During the film, we are by her side for every minute. It’s like it was shot from her head, almost as if she, the character, was directing her own journey onscreen.

It would be easy to call it a film made under the shadow of neo-realism, but this would be an inaccurate statement, since here it is the realism of a six-year-old girl. This means that, if it has drama and suffering, it also has a great deal of fantasy, playing and happiness. The money-pig, given to the sisters by their mother at the beginning of the movie, is the perfect metaphor for their journey: it starts as a symbol of hope and will end up as proof of a big growth. A painful and undesired growth, but one that will be the essence of Jin from that moment on.

Treeless Mountain is one of those movies that makes you wonder what happened to its characters. Where is Jin now? How is she going to be in ten, 20 years? And that kind of relationship between spectator and character is one of the most gratifying of all.

João Candido Zacharias

Despite its grim premise, Treeless Mountain turns out to be quite optimistic after all. You wouldn’t expect that from a movie that allows two little girls, aged 6 and 4, to wonder about in a not so safe and ordered Seoul. Bin and Jin are sent to their aunt, an alcoholic, while their mother tries to settle her scores with the father (who we are led to believe is also alcoholic and even abusive). The aunt couldn’t care less about the little girls, so Bin and Jin are left on their own - until they are taken on another journey, to their grandparents.

Without any theatrical punch, a large part of the established social environment casts out the two sisters, if only temporarily, into a state of self-preservation. Their story is not your usual accelerated growing-up semi-epic coloured by unfortunate circumstances; instead it captures the charming perfection and self-sufficiency of childhood. Bin and Jin even manage to find some kind of magic in their urban setting.

On the less bright side is the preference of writer/director So-Yong Kim for extreme close-ups. Even if a certain thematic correspondence can be found between this stylistic choice and the girls’ dense personas, the fact remains that a huge part of the movie takes place on Bin’s and Jin’s cheeks. If the outside world is cruel and the city is monstrous, we should be granted the chance to actually see it for ourselves.

Mark Racz