![]() ![]() ![]() But as a filmmaker she’s more interested in the quiet that can come when you’re alone with your thoughts and - like Eun-hee - believe that you’re alone in the world. She doesn’t avoid strong emotions or personal crises if anything the story has one too many disasters. This focus on the aftermath of tragedy reflects the writer-director Bora Kim’s insistently non-melodramatic approach. There are deaths, too, though these take place offscreen and Eun-hee learns of them only later. There are meltdowns, breakups, afternoon walks and family meals. Not a lot seems to happen in “Hummingbird,” though, for Eun-hee, everything does. But she has a boyfriend, who sends love notes to her beeper. (“You idiots don’t even know right from left.”) Some girls gossip about Eun-hee, whose parents run a store where they make and sell rice cakes. At school, she and her female classmates study English and endure the contempt of their male teacher. She lives with her parents, brother and sister in a flat in a slablike high-rise in Seoul. Its heroine, Eun-hee (Ji-hu Park, an expressive miniaturist), is an ordinary 14-year-old. “The world is fascinating and beautiful.” Our girl has hit several rough patches, but from the way she keeps looking at the world you know she’ll be OK.Ī delicate portrait of a girl coming into consciousness, “House of Hummingbird,” set in 1994, is the kind of movie often and sometimes disparagingly called small. ![]() As the scene continues, a woman speaks in voice-over. Often these girls look anxious while trying to get their footing in that unstable terrain called adolescence, but now, together, they seem happy, free. She’s in a throng of schoolgirls in matching uniforms, all laughing and teasingly jostling one another. Her film, like life, is about the journey.At one point near the end of “House of Hummingbird,” a teenage girl stands and looks intently at the world around her. But through her storytelling, writer-director Bora Kim lets us know that we must have patience. House of Hummingbird's meandering approach may not work for all viewers: Eun-hee has a health scare, a family member dies, friends and boyfriends are unreliable, parents focus more on their kid's achievements than personal growth - though there's plenty baked in, you might wonder where it's all going. It's worth the effort, though, for a movie that tugs at your brain.Įun-hee's experiences include the intense social pressure of academics, a deep-seated fear of embarrassing her parents, and the impact of her community and culture prioritizing the male gender. But those unfamiliar with the cultural attitudes and historical events of 1994 Seoul may need to do some extra legwork to understand what's going on. It will hopefully be refreshing for those used to standard Hollywood fare to get the perspective of a South Korean girl - this isn't a voice that's often represented in mainstream cinematic offerings. Show moreĬoming-of-age tales are often more interesting to reflective adults than to the kids the same age as the lead character, and this drama falls right into that bucket. Eun-hee is the "hummingbird" of the title, trying to find life's sweet morsels among the unsavory slices of life. A separate heated argument between Eun-hee's parents results in domestic violence. Eun-hee and her best friend are both abused by their older brothers, but none of it takes place on camera. Her older sister skips school, sneaks a boy into her shared bedroom, and comes home after a night of drinking. She rebels by smoking, shoplifting, and cursing ("f-k," "s-t," etc.) and looks for positive attention through romantic relationships with both a boy and a girl that involve kisses and affectionate touching. Because Eun-hee isn't on board with her community's college-or-die attitude, she's ostracized by her classmates, teachers, and other parents. ![]() It's writer-director Bora Kim's semi-autobiographical story. Parents need to know that House of Hummingbird is a coming-of-age drama that follows Eun-hee (Ji-hu Park), a 14-year-old South Korean girl living in Seoul in 1994. ![]()
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