Treeless Mountain

A film by So Yong Kim

When their mother needs to leave in order to find their estranged father, seven-year-old Jin and her younger sister, Bin, are taken to live with their Big Aunt for the summer. With only a small piggy bank and their mother's promise to return when it is full, the two young girls are forced to acclimatise to changes in their family life. Counting the days, and the coins, the two bright-eyed young girls eagerly anticipate their mother's homecoming. But when the piggy bank fills up, and with their mother still not back, Big Aunt decides that she can no longer tend to the children.

Jin and Bin live in a cramped apartment in Seoul with their single mother. Though their lives are on the edge of disaster, both girls remain completely oblivious to the threats of the outside world. One morning, quite unexpectedly, their mother packs up all their belongings and sends the girls to live with their alcoholic Big Aunt – their absent father's sister, a woman they do not know. Suddenly thrust into a hostile and unfamiliar environment, the sisters are given a piggy bank and told that every time they obey their aunt they will get a coin to go in it, and when the piggy bank is full, their mother will return.

Wrestling with feelings of abandonment despite the fact that she's not mature enough to understand why their mother has left or what may become of her and Bin in the future, Jin is forced to accept an imposed responsibility where there is no guidance or security offered by adults. Left to their own devices and imaginations the girls discover a way to fill the piggy bank, and in the belief that this will bring the return of their mother, they wait on top of their little hill without trees for the arrival of her bus. But when their mother does not return, the girls are sent by their aunt to the country to live with their grandparents on a farm. It is here, as a result of their grandmother's care and interest in them, so desperately needed, that the two girls learn valuable lessons about family bonds.

A beautiful, meditative and thought-provoking film in which So Yong Kim draws outstanding performances of naturalism from her two young actresses. The camera staying close to the girls' faces, allows us to see through their eyes, with their understanding of the world. An unsentimental and delicately observed portrayal of the quiet resilience of children.