Treeless Mountain

The two young actresses in TREELESS MOUNTAIN are astonishing. Though only seven and five, they calmly sustain this heartbreaking story of cast-off children with grown-up worries. It is a quiet gem of a film, a semi-autobiographical work by Korean-American filmmaker So Yong Kim. Sisters Jin and Bin live in a middle-class Seoul apartment. Jin is a serious girl, mature beyond her years. She cares for her sister after school while their harried single mother works. When mother abruptly leaves home to find her husband, she takes the girls to live with her sister-in-law. She'll be back, she says, when their piggy bank is full of the coins that Big Aunt will give them for being good. But Big Aunt is a crotchety woman who sometimes drinks herself into a stupor and has no food in the house. Left to fend for themselves, the sisters start a lucrative business grilling grasshoppers to sell as snacks to passing schoolboys. When their mother fails to show up, they're uprooted once more and packed off to their grandparents in the country. Warily, the girls adapt. Adults so far have been disappointing, but at least they have each other. (In Korean with English subtitles) – B.B.