TORONTO—The Toronto International Film Festival is world-famous for its rich foreign film collection. One of the exciting discoveries at this year’s festival was a small and touching film entitled Treeless Mountain by So Yong Kim, an ethnic Korean director from New York. It’s an unpretentious story of two Korean girls abandoned by their mother and searching for comfort in the world of adults.
At the film’s press conference, So Yong Kim says the film was inspired by her own memories: “It is based on my childhood a little bit. It took a long time to develop the story, as I wanted to give focus to these two girls and the way they see the world around them.”
The young performers Hee Yeon Kim and Song Hee Kim, only 6 and 5 years old at the time of the shoot, do an impressively fine job at portraying a full range of emotions from anger to love, patience, longing and sadness, to perhaps the hardest of all—the unbearable drag of waiting for their mother, who is not coming for them.
The waiting scenes came from So Yong’s own childhood: “I just remember when I was a kid, I was constantly waiting for somebody to tell you what is going on. You are not in control, you are at the mercy of adults around you.”
The film deals with social issues of modern-day Korea—broken families, alcoholism, poverty in the rural areas—but is very faithful to presenting them through the eyes of children. So Yong comments, “I’m sure there are a lot of family problems in Korea now, but I really wanted to find something that is honest with the girls: How they view the world around them, and how they experience life together, and being away from their mom and their home.” This honesty is the most touching and extraordinary element in the film.
This was So Yong’s first film about children, but she admits directing them was not difficult, once their personalities were included in thme script.
“I wrote the script as best as I could,” she says, “but the kids that were going to be played by non-actors were bringing their own selves into the characters. Hee Yeon, who played Jin, is very independent and very strong in real life, and so she brought that to the character.”
Other gems that the little actors brought into the film were their sense of humor, the sincerity of their sister relationship, the purity of their feelings for each other and the adults around them. With all these treasures in it, the film is truly not only refreshing but also rejuvenating at many levels.
At the film’s press conference, So Yong Kim says the film was inspired by her own memories: “It is based on my childhood a little bit. It took a long time to develop the story, as I wanted to give focus to these two girls and the way they see the world around them.”
The young performers Hee Yeon Kim and Song Hee Kim, only 6 and 5 years old at the time of the shoot, do an impressively fine job at portraying a full range of emotions from anger to love, patience, longing and sadness, to perhaps the hardest of all—the unbearable drag of waiting for their mother, who is not coming for them.
The waiting scenes came from So Yong’s own childhood: “I just remember when I was a kid, I was constantly waiting for somebody to tell you what is going on. You are not in control, you are at the mercy of adults around you.”
The film deals with social issues of modern-day Korea—broken families, alcoholism, poverty in the rural areas—but is very faithful to presenting them through the eyes of children. So Yong comments, “I’m sure there are a lot of family problems in Korea now, but I really wanted to find something that is honest with the girls: How they view the world around them, and how they experience life together, and being away from their mom and their home.” This honesty is the most touching and extraordinary element in the film.
This was So Yong’s first film about children, but she admits directing them was not difficult, once their personalities were included in thme script.
“I wrote the script as best as I could,” she says, “but the kids that were going to be played by non-actors were bringing their own selves into the characters. Hee Yeon, who played Jin, is very independent and very strong in real life, and so she brought that to the character.”
Other gems that the little actors brought into the film were their sense of humor, the sincerity of their sister relationship, the purity of their feelings for each other and the adults around them. With all these treasures in it, the film is truly not only refreshing but also rejuvenating at many levels.
The film was shot in Kim’s hometown—Korea’s Pusan—and offers a comprehensive view of the scenery, some idiosyncrasies of the locals (like eating grasshoppers), and an open ending.
“I think there is a sense of hope in the film that I associate with Korea,” Kim confesses. Next she is planning to make a film closer to her new home—New York.
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