FAMILY BONDS. Treeless Mountain, a drama about two young sisters forced
to live on their grandparents’ farm in their mother’s absence, opens at
Portland’s Hollywood Theatre June 19. (Photo courtesy of Oscilloscope
Pictures)
From The Asian Reporter, V19, #23 (June 16, 2009), page 11.
Little kids and the big picture
Treeless Mountain
Written and directed by So Yong Kim
Produced by Bradley Rust Gray, Ben Howe, Lars Knudsen, Jay
Van Hoy, and So Yong Kim
Distributed by Oscilloscope Pictures
By Ronault L.S. Catalani
There’s quiet magic in So Yong Kim’s feature film Treeless Mountain.
Of course it’s in the subtlety of her child actors, in their longing eyes,
their spontaneous giggling and sincere sighs. But more to the point, it’s
primarily in what the director has asked big sister Hee Yeon Kim and baby
sis Song Hee Kim to do on camera. The magic’s in the story.
In Treeless Mountain, Ms. Kim manages the same enchantment
pencilled masterfully for nearly 50 years by cartoonist and social
commentator Charles Schulz in newspapers of 75 countries. Like Charlie Brown
and Lucy’s world, Ms. Kim’s kids’ bright mornings and achy evenings are only
occasionally and critically peopled by grownups. And then only by those
parts of adult bodies or portions of parental speech that fit inside
picture-space centered on the child protagonists’ wishes and worries.
This is not to say Treeless Mountain is a child-centered story.
Not at all. As with all life on our wobbly world, some very adult situations
kick these kids’ universe into motion, then put the brakes on all that
momentum, or just as suddenly turn their little lives left or right in ways
kids are always, everywhere, doing their childish best to understand. To
accommodate too.
Cinematographer Anne Misawa’s long and loving moments have to be credited
for this, for patiently capturing a child’s reflection, a kid’s magical
thinking and utter practicality.
In the end, the joy of Treeless Mountain is not only Ms. Misawa
and director Kim’s long looks around a child’s small world that would make
the journey claustrophobic. There are grand metaphors — again, delivered
unhurriedly — in the rhythm of seasons. Disclosing in due time. Among them:
How the girls’ lives get richer as they devolve from big city to small town
to bumpkin village; when the sisters start laughing and why mirth has a
chance to take root; where are mountains treeless and where are mountains
lush.
Treeless Mountain opens Friday, June 19 at the Hollywood Theatre,
located at 4122 N.E. Sandy Boulevard in Portland. For complete dates and
showtimes, call (503) 281-4215 or visit <www.hollywoodtheatre.org>.
To learn more about the film, visit <www.soandbrad.com>.
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