Films about children usually need to rise above the level of their young heroes, the better to give perspective on the world at large.
But not “Treeless Mountain.” This is one of those rare movies that stay right at the level of the kids in question — almost to a claustrophobic degree.
A Korean-American director, So Yong Kim, shot “Treeless Mountain” in her native South Korea. It follows the travails of two very young girls whose mother takes them to live with her cranky sister-in-law.
The kids are 6 and 4 years old, and are played by the utterly naturalistic Hee Yeon Kim and Song Hee Kim.
Even though their age difference is slight, the two girls express distinct personalities: the older one watchful and solemn before her time, the younger one still innocent and cheery.
Something unpleasant has happened with the girls’ father, an unnamed issue the mother seems to be attending to. Perhaps because the two girls don’t know the details of this, we don’t need to, either.
Eventually the aunt gets tired of tending the children, so she drives them out to the country and deposits them with their grandparents. Since the film is basically one detail after another about what a child sees, the shift from city to country is huge.
The change to the countryside is almost like a release of tension, a loosening of the tight world of pavement and small rooms. The colors change and birdsong enters the scene.
This is all skillfully done, but it would be misrepresenting the movie to suggest that it adds up to anything like a traditional story. So Yong Kim, whose previous film was “In Between Days,” is not interested in building suspense or providing the usual rise and fall of drama.
Don’t expect a big resolution. Perhaps this film is just about adapting on the fly: the kids adapting to the new environments they find themselves thrown into along the way and the audience adapting to a different kind of movie-watching experience.
None of which is academic. When “Treeless Mountain” comes to its logical but sudden ending, the emotional effect is sneaky. But strong.
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