Treeless Mountain (2009)

Treeless Mountain is a tough film to watch as it is quiet and moves slowly. There is no soundtrack, but the lack of music adds a sense of rawness of the story. However, while the absence of music helps the viewer develop an honest connection to the characters, I think the film also could have benefited from occasional music to increase emotional impact and watchability.

The story is bittersweet and (modestly) powerful, and it left me feeling both hopeful and sad. The best parts of the film are probably the performances of the two little girls. The girls were very natural, making me feel like I was simply observing the children's journey through life. I also loved the cinematography. Some scenes were so beautiful that I can still remember them vividly a few years after seeing the film.

There were so many parts of this film that I loved, but because the slow pacing makes it a little difficult to sit through, I leave an overall rating of 7 ('good').

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Heartbreak..Theirs and Mine

I won't bore you with fancy entertainment industry words such as cinematography, direction, etc. Treeless Mountain (named for the small branch of a tree the youngest, Bin, and her sister, Jin, "planted" on the top of a gravel/dirt pile in their aunt's neighborhood is an extremely slow slice of life movie. The tree branch was a metaphor for the sisters' plight.

Treeless Mountain isn't a feel-good movie.

There isn't any background music (bgm), very little interaction between the grown folks and the girls, and has an overall feeling of hopelessness about it as we're carried along by the girls daily survival, first under the "care" of the aunt, then by their grandparents in the country.

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