..the film is tender, touching and charming, a portrait of quiet resilience and sisterly devotion...
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09/20/09
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Treeless Mountain (2009)
86
%
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Reviews Counted:35
Fresh:30
Rotten:5
Average Rating:7.6/10
Consensus: Intermittently wondrous and harsh, this sensitive drama about two abandoned sisters gives time and space to the intimate and beautiful moments of childhood.
Theatrical Release:Apr 22, 2009 Limited
Synopsis: When their mother needs to leave in order to find their estranged father, seven year-old Jin and her younger sister, Bin, are left to live with their Big Aunt for the summer. With only a small... [More]
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Reviews for Treeless Mountain
Interesting if occasionally limiting.
08/07/09
Somewhere in between all the emptiness -- the film's laconic chapters are separated by repeated static shots of clouds and sky -- a beautiful little point is made.
07/23/09
Top CriticIt's subtle, moving and, despite the grim subject, hopeful.
07/17/09
In modest, lovingly observed ways, the director gives her characters -- and, one hazards, herself -- the gentlest gift of sweet possibility.
07/17/09
Top CriticSo Yong Kim has a real gift for putting children at ease before the camera, and her two very young actresses (who are not sisters off-screen) reward her with performances of heartbreaking realism.
06/26/09
The film is spare and a bit static, the plot a buildup of mundane moments, but Kim's conceptual smarts and firm direction are impressive, as are the performances from such little children.
06/19/09
Treeless Mountain casts a sad, pellucid spell. It looks at life from three feet off the ground and meets the hardening gaze of its 6-year-old protagonist head on.
06/18/09
Top Critic...requires the commitment by the viewer to get involved in the lives of the little girls. But, for the real film buff, this is a true labor of love and worth the effort.
06/13/09
Relying on the essentially inert performances of child actors, So Yong Kim draws on a deep understanding of how movies work but also taps into her own experiences. That's a potent combination.
06/13/09
Whatever magic filmmaker So Yong Kim used to get the two girls to feel so at ease, you wish she would have used a little of that on the rest of the film as well. While it is a fairly realistic and no-frills drama, it's also dull.
06/11/09
So Yong Kim's quiet film which takes its time observing the minutiae of every day life has an undercurrent of grander themes at play.
06/01/09
I crossed. It’s the sort of “slice of life” that defies words, which is perhaps why these little girls and their overwhelmingly grey world are rendered in such quietude.
05/15/09
So Yong Kim has made another minimalist masterpiece, a quiet movie of sharply observed details and two girls who will break your heart.
05/15/09
Top CriticIn the end, this melancholy, inspiriting movie achieves a breathtaking emotional harmoniousness.
05/08/09
Kim is deft and sensitive with her tiny co-stars, but Treeless Mountain lacks the freshness and surprise of In Between Days.
05/08/09
Top CriticSo Yong Kim's remarkable film never spells out exactly what Jin or Bin is thinking, the camera implies how they see.
05/07/09
Children rule the day in this semi-autobiographical film by new film maker So Yong Kim but it comes off more as an exercise in filmmaking than entertainment.
05/04/09
A surrealistic charmer blessed with some breathtaking cinematography.
04/25/09
Too many filmmakers look down -- literally and figuratively -- on children. But in the carefully observed Treeless Mountain, So Young Kim gets us to immediately identify with her young heroines.
04/24/09
Top CriticLatest News for Treeless Mountain
April 23, 2009:
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