Hong Sang-Soo's film The Day He Arrives fits squarely in a category of "oblique movies," films that function as much as a pure art film as it does as storytelling. There is basically a beginning and end, but the middle gets rather murky -- on purpose -- and it is in this fog, and because of this fog, that the tale comes alive and turns something banal into something wonderful.
Concentrating again on the reflexive world of "film culture," as he did with his last film Woman on the Beach, the movie focuses on the day film professor and director Sangjoon arrives in Seoul to meets up with his friend Youngho. Sangjoon first visits an ex-girlfriend, and walks down the street meeting and talking to several strangers. He meets a trio of film students who recognize him and invite him to eat a meal with them. He later meets up with Youngho and a woman who works with him. The waitress at this restaurant is flirty and they all four begin to talk. At the end of the night they leave as normal.
The next thing we see, without any explanation is the same story beginning again (or, at least beginning after Sangjoon leaves the ex's apartment). Most of the specifics about the thread are different, conversations has some similarities although people meet in different places and go in different directions, but the important structural elements (such as Sangjoon eating at a restaurant and leaving with a woman) remain intact and recognizable. We see three full cycles of the same story, each a bit different.
Of course, the first thought in any film-goer's mind is that this seems like a twist on Rashomon-type story, where the reason for the variations is because different people remember the situation differently. However it doesn't seem to be that straightforward. This isn't so much about different points of view of the same story, but different possibilities of the same very small events. It also doesn't involve multiple narrators, but just a single third-person omniscient one.
It's never clear, nor does it matter, whether each of these scenarios actually plays out in Sangjoon's life, if he imagines the same situations happening differently (maybe he ends up with the waitress at the end of the night, maybe with Yongho's colleague), or if it's just Hong riffing on a small idea -- possibly a meta work on the nature of the medium with screenwriter/filmmaker playing god at the human chessboard. There is a sense that Hong is improvising on a theme the way a Jazz saxophonist might twist and expand a standard, so you know what you're hearing, though you never heard it this way before.
Hong really gives us no clear answers about what he's looking to achieve here (unlike with the Kurosawa, where it's pretty clear he's exploring the nature of subjectivity) and this is what makes the film interesting and fun. It has a playfulness and an alacrity that raises this essay from purely theoretical and alienating to familiar and warm. We get into the game of the film, waiting for the next story rhyme, enjoying how variations from past events will come back. At one point a highway sign flashed for less than a second in the first shot of the film comes back near the end -- not creating any great meaning, but highlighting that the act of film viewing is deep and should be engaging.
Stars: 3.5 of 4
Showing posts with label Korean. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Korean. Show all posts
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Friday, February 18, 2011
Poetry (Friday, February 18, 2011) (7)
I have seen a bunch of Korean films in the last few years and most of them have been wonderful. There is a simplicity about them that is very interesting. Generally focusing on normal domestic situations (even when they're monster movies or documentaries), they tell straightforward, sometimes sad and frequently powerful stories. Perhaps it's unfair to lump them all together as a monolithic singular thing (just as with American cinema, there's no reason why there can't be a wide variety of genres and aesthetic styles), but the ones that I have seen have shared an interesting melancholia and directness reminiscent of the best of Ozu or the Dardenne brothers.
Lee Chang-dong's Poetry falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum in terms of new Korean films. It is not as sad and desperate as Kim So Yong's Treeless Mountain or In Between Days, not as flashy as Bong Joon-ho's The Host or Mother and not as bizarre as Im Sang-soo's The Housemaid. It is somewhat of a 'Goldilocks' film, falling just in the middle of all of these other directors and films. For me, I would have preferred it be more of one of those things than just middle, but what we get is still very nice.
At times the story and the way it unravels is reminiscent of Lee's last film, Secret Sunshine (just released in New York a few months ago). Mija is a woman in her 60s who lives in a small country town. She is very poor, making just a bit of money as a housekeeper for an old man. She raises her impudent teenage grandson (her daughter, the boy's mother is out of the picture) and is fighting depression and dementia. She joins a poetry class where the instructor teaches her how to look at the world in a different, more artistic way and she sets to work crafting her own poem. As she does this, her life gets more complicated as her grandson gets into trouble that she does not expect or know how to deal with.
There is a lovely dialectic in the film between the lyrical way Mija looks at the world as a poet (or poet-in-training), and how the reality for her on the ground is much less fluid and beautiful. She has to live in a world of pain and filth but rise above that to experience the world as an artist. She struggles with knowing how to behave and react in the two worlds: the day-to-day world with an unexpected challenge from her grandson, and the more comfortable, emotional world of poetry that is still new to her. Neither place is totally easy for her to be in and neither world allows her to live in it without difficulty.
Yun Jeong-hie is absolutely fabulous as Mija. She moves from what seems to be aloofness at the beginning, to what we are told is early-onset Alzheimer's beautifully. Her inability to communicate with her grandson, or really anyone for that matter, is visible not just in her difficulty in speaking, but also in the pain we see on her face. She knows what's wrong and what's right in most situations but has a hard time expressing these feelings.
The narrative structure is very similar to that of Secret Sunshine (to the point that I felt the story could be written by Lee before I knew it was), but I think the script is better in that than in this one. There is a gentleness that pervades the film that is interrupted several times by bigger 'bangs' of plot direction change. This trick feels a bit more blunt here than in Sunshine and a bit forced. (Time will tell if this is just a result of Lee being a mediocre writer or if this is just a stylistic flourish that will change over the years). Both films are just a bit too long, as well, and could benefit from tightening the story by about 15 minutes.
This film is certainly good enough to fit in well with the top tier of new Korean films (like Treeless Mountain, In Between Days, The Host and Secret Sunshine), but falls slightly below those in terms of overall beauty and virtuosity. I think there are moments here that feel a bit empty to me, that I recognize are important to the film, but I don't relate to. Much of the film is fabulous, but some of it is merely average.
Stars: 3 of 4
Lee Chang-dong's Poetry falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum in terms of new Korean films. It is not as sad and desperate as Kim So Yong's Treeless Mountain or In Between Days, not as flashy as Bong Joon-ho's The Host or Mother and not as bizarre as Im Sang-soo's The Housemaid. It is somewhat of a 'Goldilocks' film, falling just in the middle of all of these other directors and films. For me, I would have preferred it be more of one of those things than just middle, but what we get is still very nice.
At times the story and the way it unravels is reminiscent of Lee's last film, Secret Sunshine (just released in New York a few months ago). Mija is a woman in her 60s who lives in a small country town. She is very poor, making just a bit of money as a housekeeper for an old man. She raises her impudent teenage grandson (her daughter, the boy's mother is out of the picture) and is fighting depression and dementia. She joins a poetry class where the instructor teaches her how to look at the world in a different, more artistic way and she sets to work crafting her own poem. As she does this, her life gets more complicated as her grandson gets into trouble that she does not expect or know how to deal with.
There is a lovely dialectic in the film between the lyrical way Mija looks at the world as a poet (or poet-in-training), and how the reality for her on the ground is much less fluid and beautiful. She has to live in a world of pain and filth but rise above that to experience the world as an artist. She struggles with knowing how to behave and react in the two worlds: the day-to-day world with an unexpected challenge from her grandson, and the more comfortable, emotional world of poetry that is still new to her. Neither place is totally easy for her to be in and neither world allows her to live in it without difficulty.
Yun Jeong-hie is absolutely fabulous as Mija. She moves from what seems to be aloofness at the beginning, to what we are told is early-onset Alzheimer's beautifully. Her inability to communicate with her grandson, or really anyone for that matter, is visible not just in her difficulty in speaking, but also in the pain we see on her face. She knows what's wrong and what's right in most situations but has a hard time expressing these feelings.
The narrative structure is very similar to that of Secret Sunshine (to the point that I felt the story could be written by Lee before I knew it was), but I think the script is better in that than in this one. There is a gentleness that pervades the film that is interrupted several times by bigger 'bangs' of plot direction change. This trick feels a bit more blunt here than in Sunshine and a bit forced. (Time will tell if this is just a result of Lee being a mediocre writer or if this is just a stylistic flourish that will change over the years). Both films are just a bit too long, as well, and could benefit from tightening the story by about 15 minutes.
This film is certainly good enough to fit in well with the top tier of new Korean films (like Treeless Mountain, In Between Days, The Host and Secret Sunshine), but falls slightly below those in terms of overall beauty and virtuosity. I think there are moments here that feel a bit empty to me, that I recognize are important to the film, but I don't relate to. Much of the film is fabulous, but some of it is merely average.
Stars: 3 of 4
Saturday, January 22, 2011
The Housemaid (Saturday, January 22, 2011) (3)
The Housemaid is a weird movie. I have come to expect from contemporary Korean films that the directors sometimes like to shock and surprise us, but this movie takes that idea and really runs with it. At times I felt like writer-director Im Sang-Soo was telling an interesting psycho-sexual drama and at time it felt like he was poking fun at us for thinking it was serious, while he made a silly drama similar to a soft-core porno you'd see on late night cable. This isn't to suggest the film is pornographic, but the dramatic plot line was silly and forced throughout.
Hoon and his wife Haera are super rich and have a gigantic house. They have one old housekeeper, Nami, and are looking to hire an assistant for her to help with things around the house. They find Eun-yi, a young woman, and hire her to help out taking care of their young daughter and do smaller tasks like taking food and wine to different parts of the home (because when you're rich you hire people to do that for you). In a short time Eun-yi and Hoon are having an affair. Nami, never happy with her young assistant, finds out about the affair and tries to let Haera know about it in the most dignified way possible. All hell breaks lose when Eun-yi gets pregnant and Nami and Haera's plans crumble as Korean family pride (and blackmail) becomes more important than anything else.
One thing that Sang-Soo does very well here is that he creates a beautiful world of unparalleled luxury with gigantic spaces (in the enormous home) decorated in the finest woods and marbles. The interiors are sumptuous and the costumes work with them beautifully. At times I was reminded of the richness of the rooms and spaces in Luca Guadagnino's recent I Am Love. At time same time, though, there is a coldness and antiseptic quality to the cleanness of everything - which, of course is important here as we realize this rich family is much more superficial, fragile and even toxic than we had originally thought.
There has been a recent trend in the past few years of movies about maids (well, maybe it even goes back to Mary Poppins) and how powerful and manipulative a force they can be. They are like domineering mothers, but are not part of the family and are paid to be there, or not be there. They know all that goes on in their houses, generally don't meddle with the family business, but can find out important information by simply doing their normal job. In many ways Nami is reminiscent of Catalina Saavedra's maid character in Sebastian Silva's The Maid. She wants to be part of the family and thinks of herself as such, she's reluctant to admit she needs help and is such a master of the home that she knows how to control people who step foot in it.
This film is about how maids have become Freudian nightmares. They are motherly and caring (assuming you pay them), but also can be sexual or sexually threatening. They are uber-mothers - not part of the family (and you can have sex with them if you want), but are hard to get rid of if you don't like them.
The finale of this film goes much too far and involves flames and high-wire hijinks (almost literally). It is a shame this happens as there is a lot of interesting stuff to go through in the film about male-female relationships and the cost of companionship and love. Sang-soo goes for a rather big, cheap spectacle at the end (and throughout, really) and undermines the good stuff that we saw before. This is a shame because this could have been a very interesting and beautiful film otherwise.
Stars: 2.5 of 4
Hoon and his wife Haera are super rich and have a gigantic house. They have one old housekeeper, Nami, and are looking to hire an assistant for her to help with things around the house. They find Eun-yi, a young woman, and hire her to help out taking care of their young daughter and do smaller tasks like taking food and wine to different parts of the home (because when you're rich you hire people to do that for you). In a short time Eun-yi and Hoon are having an affair. Nami, never happy with her young assistant, finds out about the affair and tries to let Haera know about it in the most dignified way possible. All hell breaks lose when Eun-yi gets pregnant and Nami and Haera's plans crumble as Korean family pride (and blackmail) becomes more important than anything else.
One thing that Sang-Soo does very well here is that he creates a beautiful world of unparalleled luxury with gigantic spaces (in the enormous home) decorated in the finest woods and marbles. The interiors are sumptuous and the costumes work with them beautifully. At times I was reminded of the richness of the rooms and spaces in Luca Guadagnino's recent I Am Love. At time same time, though, there is a coldness and antiseptic quality to the cleanness of everything - which, of course is important here as we realize this rich family is much more superficial, fragile and even toxic than we had originally thought.
There has been a recent trend in the past few years of movies about maids (well, maybe it even goes back to Mary Poppins) and how powerful and manipulative a force they can be. They are like domineering mothers, but are not part of the family and are paid to be there, or not be there. They know all that goes on in their houses, generally don't meddle with the family business, but can find out important information by simply doing their normal job. In many ways Nami is reminiscent of Catalina Saavedra's maid character in Sebastian Silva's The Maid. She wants to be part of the family and thinks of herself as such, she's reluctant to admit she needs help and is such a master of the home that she knows how to control people who step foot in it.
This film is about how maids have become Freudian nightmares. They are motherly and caring (assuming you pay them), but also can be sexual or sexually threatening. They are uber-mothers - not part of the family (and you can have sex with them if you want), but are hard to get rid of if you don't like them.
The finale of this film goes much too far and involves flames and high-wire hijinks (almost literally). It is a shame this happens as there is a lot of interesting stuff to go through in the film about male-female relationships and the cost of companionship and love. Sang-soo goes for a rather big, cheap spectacle at the end (and throughout, really) and undermines the good stuff that we saw before. This is a shame because this could have been a very interesting and beautiful film otherwise.
Stars: 2.5 of 4
Monday, December 20, 2010
Secret Sunshine (Monday, December 20, 2010) (158)
Secret Sunshine is a beautiful (long) movie by Korean director Lee Chang-dong. It follows Shin-ae, a thirty-something woman who is moving from Seoul to the small town of Miryang after her husband's tragic death in a car accident. She's with her young son who is nervous about going, but follows her dutifully. She sets up a piano school in the town and looking for meaning in her new life, begins investigating purchasing some land on which to build a house.
As this is going on, she is being doted on by the local car mechanic who met her when she first got to town. He begins following her everywhere and joining all the clubs she joins. One day her son is tragically kidnapped and killed sending her on a turbulent ride through the worlds of Evangelical religion and depression.
This is a very interesting film that begins very calmly and naturalisticaly and builds into a fascinating piece about the extremes of humanity. Shin-ae is looking for meaning in life, so she asks everyone if they know that the name of their town, Miryang, means "secret sunshine" in Chinese. One man answers that they don't think about the name - they just live there. For her, she's constantly thinking about everything and looking for purpose in all that she does. She can't just sit back and "live there", she has to know what she's living and why.
The very realistic calmness and normalcy of this film is reminiscent of fellow Korean Kim So Yong's Treeless Mountain and In Between Days. There is a brutal frankness to everything, and unvarnished immediacy that is refreshing and elegant. At the end of the first act, however, the film turns a bit and becomes a bit more like a Dardenne Brothers film (like The Promise or The Son, in particular). It's about normal places and times, but the ugly underbelly of those places. Things seem nice on the surface (nice people, nice places), but there is lots of rot and bitterness beneath.
There is also a beautiful ontological examination of faith and fundamental truth here. We are forced to deal with issues of forgiveness and how religion gets in the way of our human emotions for betrayal, mercy, love and hate. There is one scene where actress Jeon Do-Yeon goes from pure exaltation to desperation in a split second due to a religious revelation. She gives one of the best performances of the year here, showing a tremendous range of emotion.
This is a long movie, but it is worth watching. It is subtle and beautiful and deeply interesting. I am so happy there are such wonderful films coming from Korea these days. It really is one country that has produced some of the most amazing films in recent years.
Stars: 3.5 of 4
As this is going on, she is being doted on by the local car mechanic who met her when she first got to town. He begins following her everywhere and joining all the clubs she joins. One day her son is tragically kidnapped and killed sending her on a turbulent ride through the worlds of Evangelical religion and depression.
This is a very interesting film that begins very calmly and naturalisticaly and builds into a fascinating piece about the extremes of humanity. Shin-ae is looking for meaning in life, so she asks everyone if they know that the name of their town, Miryang, means "secret sunshine" in Chinese. One man answers that they don't think about the name - they just live there. For her, she's constantly thinking about everything and looking for purpose in all that she does. She can't just sit back and "live there", she has to know what she's living and why.
The very realistic calmness and normalcy of this film is reminiscent of fellow Korean Kim So Yong's Treeless Mountain and In Between Days. There is a brutal frankness to everything, and unvarnished immediacy that is refreshing and elegant. At the end of the first act, however, the film turns a bit and becomes a bit more like a Dardenne Brothers film (like The Promise or The Son, in particular). It's about normal places and times, but the ugly underbelly of those places. Things seem nice on the surface (nice people, nice places), but there is lots of rot and bitterness beneath.
There is also a beautiful ontological examination of faith and fundamental truth here. We are forced to deal with issues of forgiveness and how religion gets in the way of our human emotions for betrayal, mercy, love and hate. There is one scene where actress Jeon Do-Yeon goes from pure exaltation to desperation in a split second due to a religious revelation. She gives one of the best performances of the year here, showing a tremendous range of emotion.
This is a long movie, but it is worth watching. It is subtle and beautiful and deeply interesting. I am so happy there are such wonderful films coming from Korea these days. It really is one country that has produced some of the most amazing films in recent years.
Stars: 3.5 of 4
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Old Partner (2009) (Thursday, May 27, 2010) (227)
Old Partner is a very sweet and small South Korean documentary about an old man who lives on a poor rural farm and has a 40-year old cow who still helps him tend his crops. The man deeply loves and trusts the animal and does not want to believe that his old friend might die soon.
There is not much in this movie and it is very slow moving, but it is delightful. The man smiles all the time and has a generally positive view of the world. It's another interesting view of life in South Korea outside of the major cities (along with Treeless Mountain from last year and the break dancing documentary from a few years ago, Planet B-Boy), which is frequently very poor and desperate. Director Lee Chung-Ryoul does a very nice job making a peaceful movie about a peaceful man. It might be a bit too slow for some, but I liked it OK.
Stars: 2 of 4
There is not much in this movie and it is very slow moving, but it is delightful. The man smiles all the time and has a generally positive view of the world. It's another interesting view of life in South Korea outside of the major cities (along with Treeless Mountain from last year and the break dancing documentary from a few years ago, Planet B-Boy), which is frequently very poor and desperate. Director Lee Chung-Ryoul does a very nice job making a peaceful movie about a peaceful man. It might be a bit too slow for some, but I liked it OK.
Stars: 2 of 4
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Mother (Sunday, March 28th, 2010) (25)
I am a big fan of South Korean director Joon-ho Bong most well known film, The Host. It is a monster movie in the tradition of the great B-movies of the 1950s and 1960s, like Godzilla or Mothra, but is silly, self-aware, moral and very down-to-earth. Because of this, I was very excited to see his new film, Mother.
This is a Hitchcockian murder mystery based around a guy, Do-joon, who is autistic. He has a small group of friends in the rural town setting and they treat him like anyone else. One night when walking home from the bar he discovers the body of a girl who has been murdered. Immediately he is the main suspect, but mostly because he's an easy target who can't account for his whereabouts -partly because of his difficulty communicating and partly because he was a bit drunk at the time. His mother and all his friends don't believe he was capable of such a thing and they set out to prove him innocent and find the real killer (with or without police help).
Much like The Host, the tone throughout the film is very silly and over-the-top. People behave in ridiculous ways, launching into long monologues, being very silly when they drink, and using very crude language all the time. The violent scenes are also crazy and super bloody - but with a juvenile gory element to them. At times these aspects are enjoyable and at times they are frustrating. Bong spends so much time setting up the ridiculous, stylized situations that I got annoyed that I was not just able to see what was happening without the zaniness. It is a bit too much style and not enough substance. It is certainly a lot of fun, but just too overdone for my taste.
The eponymous mother character is a bit unhinged and is for me a bit hard to empathize with. She's overbearing and much-too concerned with her special-needs son. She interacts with him as if he was a child - even in his 30s - and seems to go overboard with her reaction to his arrest. I guess, as the title describes, this is the central part of the movie - but it actually felt like a side story and not the main direction. For me, the film is really about this special-needs kid and how he lives and then gets into trouble. That his mother is a mad freak is just a bit unnecessary for me - a hat on top of a hat, if you will.
The ending of the film is pure Hitchcock where it is unclear whether the good guy really wins in the end - or if everybody else loses. I really like these classic elements of the story and script.
Stars 2.5 of 4
This is a Hitchcockian murder mystery based around a guy, Do-joon, who is autistic. He has a small group of friends in the rural town setting and they treat him like anyone else. One night when walking home from the bar he discovers the body of a girl who has been murdered. Immediately he is the main suspect, but mostly because he's an easy target who can't account for his whereabouts -partly because of his difficulty communicating and partly because he was a bit drunk at the time. His mother and all his friends don't believe he was capable of such a thing and they set out to prove him innocent and find the real killer (with or without police help).
Much like The Host, the tone throughout the film is very silly and over-the-top. People behave in ridiculous ways, launching into long monologues, being very silly when they drink, and using very crude language all the time. The violent scenes are also crazy and super bloody - but with a juvenile gory element to them. At times these aspects are enjoyable and at times they are frustrating. Bong spends so much time setting up the ridiculous, stylized situations that I got annoyed that I was not just able to see what was happening without the zaniness. It is a bit too much style and not enough substance. It is certainly a lot of fun, but just too overdone for my taste.
The eponymous mother character is a bit unhinged and is for me a bit hard to empathize with. She's overbearing and much-too concerned with her special-needs son. She interacts with him as if he was a child - even in his 30s - and seems to go overboard with her reaction to his arrest. I guess, as the title describes, this is the central part of the movie - but it actually felt like a side story and not the main direction. For me, the film is really about this special-needs kid and how he lives and then gets into trouble. That his mother is a mad freak is just a bit unnecessary for me - a hat on top of a hat, if you will.
The ending of the film is pure Hitchcock where it is unclear whether the good guy really wins in the end - or if everybody else loses. I really like these classic elements of the story and script.
Stars 2.5 of 4
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Treeless Mountain (Tuesday, November 17, 2009) (164)
Let's face it - there are so many small foreign films that it's easy to miss the very, very small ones. Treeless Mountain is one of those, which I saw a trailer for this spring, but then missed when it was briefly in theaters in New York. I just got the chance to see it on DVD - and I'm thrilled that I did.
From writer-director So Yong Kim, who also made the lovely In Between Days in 2007, comes this story about two little girls (about 6- and 4-years old) who are basically self-sufficient in a Korean city while their single mother struggles to make ends meet. Ultimately the mother gives the girls to their aunt while their mom goes off to find work and love elsewhere. The aunt is in worse financial shape than the mother, and she also is a drunk. She does not allow the girls to eat outside of the home, and frequently forgets to feed them when she comes back from a night out. The girls basically take care of themselves, starting a small business cooking grasshoppers as snacks for school kids.
What is really refreshing about this film, and about So Yong Kim's eye, is that it is very respectfully from the point of view of the girls. There are a lot of low-angle shots and the girls are almost always seen at their (short) level. We do not see them, for instance from an adult level, looking down over the top of their heads. This can be hard to do, I think. It's not condescending and not infantalizing either. It's very matter-of-fact. As with In Between Days, Kim has a beautiful natural-realist style that is very frank and appealing. The film has a poetic grittiness and a natural, sometimes dirty, look.
Child actors are almost always difficult to criticize. They're generally super cute (which is how they get the roles) and mostly don't have their acting chops developed yet. These two girls are very good and natural and do not overplay their sweet-ness too much.
Much of the film is about the two girls basically being bored to death as they wait for their adult supervisors to engage them. For most of the film, they are not in school, and have very minimal contact to the grown-up world. Still, I didn't find the film boring, rather it feels very careful and exact.
Again, this is a very small film. There might be 20 lines of dialogue in it total - most of the film is pretty quiet or silent. It's an atmospheric exercise and it is really pretty.
Stars: 3 of 4
From writer-director So Yong Kim, who also made the lovely In Between Days in 2007, comes this story about two little girls (about 6- and 4-years old) who are basically self-sufficient in a Korean city while their single mother struggles to make ends meet. Ultimately the mother gives the girls to their aunt while their mom goes off to find work and love elsewhere. The aunt is in worse financial shape than the mother, and she also is a drunk. She does not allow the girls to eat outside of the home, and frequently forgets to feed them when she comes back from a night out. The girls basically take care of themselves, starting a small business cooking grasshoppers as snacks for school kids.
What is really refreshing about this film, and about So Yong Kim's eye, is that it is very respectfully from the point of view of the girls. There are a lot of low-angle shots and the girls are almost always seen at their (short) level. We do not see them, for instance from an adult level, looking down over the top of their heads. This can be hard to do, I think. It's not condescending and not infantalizing either. It's very matter-of-fact. As with In Between Days, Kim has a beautiful natural-realist style that is very frank and appealing. The film has a poetic grittiness and a natural, sometimes dirty, look.
Child actors are almost always difficult to criticize. They're generally super cute (which is how they get the roles) and mostly don't have their acting chops developed yet. These two girls are very good and natural and do not overplay their sweet-ness too much.
Much of the film is about the two girls basically being bored to death as they wait for their adult supervisors to engage them. For most of the film, they are not in school, and have very minimal contact to the grown-up world. Still, I didn't find the film boring, rather it feels very careful and exact.
Again, this is a very small film. There might be 20 lines of dialogue in it total - most of the film is pretty quiet or silent. It's an atmospheric exercise and it is really pretty.
Stars: 3 of 4
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