Movies from South Korean directors have captivated the moviegoing world in recent years, and with good reason. Actually, several good reasons: “Parasite,” “Train to Busan,” “The Handmaiden,” “The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil,” “Oldboy” and “Burning” among them.
But those are all films directed by men. Female South Korean filmmakers have not had similar exposure or acclaim. Now along comes director/writer Bora Kim, whose debut film, “House of Hummingbird,” which begins streaming through the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s mfah.org/movienight site July 22, is making up for lost ground. This slow-moving but exquisitely drawn character study and coming-of-age story, which has picked up several awards at film festivals around the world, takes its time getting where it’s going, but the cumulative impact of the journey is powerful.
Set in 1994, the film paints a picture of a South Korea a world away from the high-rise, “Gangnam Style,” Hyundai Genesis-driven glitz of contemporary creation. In fact, everything seems to be breaking down and falling apart, literally and figuratively. Her neighborhood is run down, and there’s a general sense of social unease. On the news comes word of the death of North Korean leader Kim-Il Sung and later the collapse of South Korea’s Seongsu Bridge that killed 32.
Unrated
Running time: 138 minutes
Language: in Korean with English subtitles
Where: Streams July 22-July 28 at mfah.org/movienight; releases on Blu-ray Aug. 4
**** (out of 5)
But, for young Eun-hee (Ji-hu Park), the decay is far more personal. Her family is a horror show. Her father, an overworked shopkeeper, is emotionally and physically abusive. Her brother assaults her (not as badly as her friend, who gets hit by her brother with a baseball bat, but still …). She has little connection with her sister, who’d rather be out partying. Her teachers are draconian tyrants. And mom is just disengaged. In fact, the movie opens with Eun-hee banging on the door of her house, yelling for her mother to let her in.
She seeks some sort of relief in a school friend and a tentative relationship with a kinda-sorta boyfriend, but even they can’t be counted on. She’s drowning, and her life raft comes in the form of Yong-ji (Sae-byuk Kim), a substitute teacher at her Chinese-language cram school. Yong-ji is the first person who seems to actually listen and care about what she has to say and what’s going on in her life. It’s perhaps because Yong-ji seems somewhat emotionally at sea herself.
Park, who is in nearly every scene, is persuasive as a confused, lonely teenager, while Kim’s style of intimating and not showing — for example, the attack by Eun-hee’s brother is not shown, but we know what’s going behind the closed door — makes this world she has created all the more discomfiting.
While there are times when “House of Hummingbird” threatens to sag into torpor as it sprawls well over two hours, it never does. Instead, it slowly builds up a head of steam for a final 15 minutes that makes it all worth it.
What’s even more remarkable is that, with her very first feature, Bora Kim has definitely arrived at the forefront of South Korean directors.
cary.darling@chron.com
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