ND/NF. "Treeless Mountain"

By David Hudson on 03/27/2009

"No director working today captures girlhood better than So Yong Kim," declares Melissa Anderson, who talks with the director for the Voice. "Her debut film, 2006's dreamy, melancholic 'In Between Days,' focuses on teenager Aimie, a recent Korean immigrant living with her mother in Toronto, who falls deeply in love with her best friend. Kim's second feature, 'Treeless Mountain,' which plays at New Directors/New Films before opening at Film Forum on April 22, is simply one of the best films about childhood ever made: Set in Seoul and Hunghae, Korea, 'Treeless Mountain' follows two sisters--six-year-old Jin (Hee-Yeon Kim) and four-year-old Bin (Song-Hee Kim) - struggling to make sense of the world after their mother leaves them in the care of an alcoholic aunt and, later, with their maternal grandparents in the country."

"Clear-sighted and unpretentious, 'Treeless Mountain' begins as a portentous what-if scenario along the lines of Hirokazu Kore-eda's arresting 'Nobody Knows,'" writes Nick Schager in Slant. "Yet the film so persuasively affixes itself to its protagonists' outlook - in a first-person peek into a piggy bank, or a glance at an elderly woman working - that, as Jin and Bin finally find a home for themselves, it gradually develops into a sanguine snapshot of the resiliency of youth, the tenacity of hope, and the reciprocal nature of kindness, all encapsulated by the closing sight of two young girls merrily singing and skipping through the tall grass."

The film is the "standout of this year's fest" for Cullen Gallagher, writing in the L Magazine, and the two young actresses "express more depth than any of this year's leading or supporting Oscar noms."

This is a "neo-realist gem," writes Stephen Holden in the New York Times. "For all its poignancy, this study of childhood loneliness and uncertainty is no manipulative tearjerker."

"Cinematographer Anne Misawa counters the downer subject matter with a lushness that echoes the ultimate sense of hope in the movie," notes Marisa Meltzer at Tribeca Film.

Howard Feinstein at indieWIRE: "Kim holds her camera extremely close in on the children, but the technique becomes a little monotonous."

"In last week's New York Times Magazine, film critic AO Scott singled out So Yong Kim's sophomore film 'Treeless Mountain' as exemplary of a new cinematic trend he dubbed 'neo-neo realism' - a movement distinguished by its cinema verité aesthetic, use of non-actors, and depiction of problems familiar on a 'basic human level.'" Jessica Loudis at the filmlinc blog: "Although all of these characteristics apply to 'Treeless Mountain,' to describe it as neo-realistic (or neo-neo realistic, as Scott will have it) is to flatly categorize a subtle and provocative film."

Earlier: Reviews from Toronto and Berlin.

Tonight and Sunday. For more on this year's New Directors / New Films, click the tag: ND/NF 2009.

[Photo: "Treeless Mountain," Oscilloscope Pictures, 2008]

Tags: ND/NF 2009, So Yong Kim, Treeless Mountain