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David Hudson
The Daily is written by David Hudson -- contact him at thedaily (at) ifc dot com.
Berlinale. "Treeless Mountain"
By David Hudson on 02/08/2009
Revisiting the reviews I gathered back in September when So Yong Kim's "Treeless Mountain" premiered in Toronto, and keeping in mind that its story of two very young sisters trying to understand why their mother would hand them off to their aunt, then trying to cope when the aunt turns out to be an alcoholic cheat, is semi-autobiographical, I'm thinking: Well, yes, only a heartless cad could remain unmoved. Of course I was moved. So much so that I felt guilty wondering while watching: Is the director depending too heavily on a combination of happenstance and long lenses to compose these frames? Did she wring such shatteringly convincing performances from these girls during the shoot or at the editing table?
Besides an admission that exposure to more criticism than movies can warp a viewing experience, what I'm also after here is an appropriate way of saying that I'm not quite as won over as many seem to have been in Toronto.
Update, 2/10: "'In Between Days' and 'Treeless Mountain' are both deeply personal works, yet they never reek of autobiography," writes Michael Tully at Hammer to Nail. "After having attended countless film festivals for the past several years, it is refreshing to discover a young writer/director who seems to have been born with a natural ability to balance filmmaker objectivity and emotional subjectivity so effortlessly."
[Photo: "Treeless Mountain," Oscilloscope Pictures, 2008]
Tags: Berlinale 2009, So Yong Kim, Treeless Mountain- Permalink
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