The subjects of this beguiling part-fiction, part-documentary hybrid are two young Korean sisters, the bright-as-a-button Jin (Hee Yeon Kim) and her sleepier little sister Bin (Song Hee Kim). When their mother lands work in another town, the girls find themselves deposited in the care of an aunt in the city. What we watch there is the process of acclimatisation the sisters face, and their sadness at being abandoned: the title refers to the mound of rubble the pair sit on at night, awaiting mum’s return.
With its emphasis on how these girls learn, the result is something like an Asian equivalent of Samira Makhmalbaf’s The Apple. Writer-director So Yong Kim’s approach is gentler, certainly - observing the sisters’ inventive attempts to fill their own piggybank - but she’s equally alert to the cruelties lurking in this world: money can’t always, it seems, buy you happiness. These two girls will break your heart: you begin Treeless Mountain wanting to cuddle them, and finish the film scrabbling to adopt them as your own.
Treeless Mountain is released on DVD April 26.
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