[Overstreet]

Well, I've just had the guts ripped out of me, and it'll be a while before I can put myself together again.

Take the beautiful, wide-eyed innocence of Ponette, give her a little sister, and then put the two of them through the abandonment-hell of Nobody Knows, and you have some idea of Treeless Mountain.

It's beautifully filmed. I don't know how to describe it without falling into words that have been wrung out by a thousand reviews. The two very young girls are miraculously convincing. The fluid camerawork and the patience of the filmmakers capture moments of such fragility and genuine emotion that I don't ever want to know how the director prompted them.

This is the kind of film that makes me want to just cancel plans for the rest of the evening and spend it in prayer for the children like this around the world. I know they're there, but a film like this can make me want to do something about it. It's not just the suffering. It's the beauty of these children, in their moments of powerful conscience, tenderness, and longing.

And the grandeur of the skies under which these children wait for rescue suggests something of what creation was meant to be. Such a stark contrast. There's a moment at 1:02, when we watch a glorious sky, and one power line divides the frame; but it looks for all the world as if we're looking through a cracked window to the sun. The suggestion I perceived there is probably accidental, but it rang out like a bell, nevertheless.

I don't have children of my own, but I have 23 nephews and nieces, and every one of them has been born into a family full of love. I am grateful for that. But they're all far away, and well cared for. This movie makes me want to do something for those who are close by and have never known that kind of security, trust, and freedom.

Here's Mike Hertenstein's review at Filmwell. Has anyone else here seen it? I got it from Netflix.

[Darren H]

From my TIFF '08 writeup at Senses of Cinema:

Quote

In Between Days, the debut feature from Korean-American filmmaker So Yong Kim, was a highlight of TIFF in 2006, and her follow-up, Treeless Mountain, continues in the same impressive, quietly observational style. Kim returned to South Korea to shoot this autobiographical story of two young sisters whose destitute mother abandons them with relatives when she sets off to find their father or work. Kim restricts the scope of the film to the older sister’s point of view, and her real achievement is eliciting such a convincing performance from six year-old Hee Yeon Kim. As in In Between Days Kim avoids the use of non-diegetic sound and shoots her fiction like a student of the Frederick Wiseman school of documentary filmmaking. She creates two utterly convincing worlds, one in and around the impoverished home of the girls’ aunt, another at their grandparents’ farm, but there’s a nagging slightness to the film. Treeless Mountain is, finally, a "child in peril" story and shares the genre’s ready-made appeals to audience sympathy, along with its fleeting pleasures.

I wonder if I'd be more impressed by Treeless Mountain if I saw it again with a different set of expectations. After the screening of In Between Days in '06, I asked Kim how she'd found the interesting rhythms of the film -- it's quite a feat for a first-time feature -- and she told me she was only then making the transition from experimental to narrative filmmaking. She's a real talent, so I went into Treeless Mountain expecting something . . . more . . . than what she gave me. She films those little girls as well as anyone could, but it all felt a bit too familiar. I blame the Iranians of the '90s, with their doe-eyed kids looking for balloons and ballet shoes. ;)

[Overstreet]

I think I would appreciate the movie even more if I hadn't seen Nobody Knows again so recently. As I said in my comment to Mike's review, I feel like "child in peril" is becoming a genre of its own. And not just "child in peril", but "child in peril, filmed with astonishing realism, and child actors who will blow your mind with their natural, oblivious-to-the-camera performances." If the story isn't interesting, and if the characters aren't very particular, then it begins to feel like "stunt realism." And the other easy mistake--one that a couple of "the Iranians" flirt with--is to sway the audiences sympathies too much with just how adorable the children are. (I was glad to see Majidi pulling back from the "cuteness" of children in The Song of Sparrows.)

Having said that, I do think these children are very distinct characters, not just kids in trouble. And the conclusion was quite particular, very different from Nobody Knows, and hopeful enough that I didn't come away with the "What the hell did you put us through this for?" feeling that the first 2/3rds of the film led me to anticipate.

This post has been edited by Overstreet: 06 November 2009 - 11:46 AM