This charming and enjoyable film is difficult to categorise. It is a potential family melodrama that evolves into a story about its central character Hana, a girl of 11 or 12. Hana’s story has elements of comedy and drama and also perhaps a gentle critique of our expectations of family life. With its bright colours and music it also made me think of anime and manga and I think that it offers something distinctively Korean or Japanese.
As the narrative begins, Hana is being elected as the ‘Best Classmate’ at the end of Summer Term. She rushes home full of energy and enthusiasm but is soon deflated by her parents’ squabbles and her older brother’s indifference. Strangely, the ‘Best Classmate’ seems to have no friends in her home district – or perhaps they are away for the summer? But one day she finds a younger girl, 7 year-old Yoo-jin, who appears to be lost in a supermarket. Searching for the girl’s parents, Hana finds instead Yoo-mi, the girl’s 9 year-old sister. Gradually Hana will be drawn into the sister’s world as they are mostly alone in a flat while their parents are working on a summer job several miles away. It’s the perfect opportunity for Hana to practice all the nurturing skills she isn’t allowed to carry out at home. The ‘House of Us’ turns out to be a house made by the three girls out of cardboard waste as just one of several craft-based activities. Hana becomes more like a mother than an older sister, revelling in the chance to cook.
Hana’s solution for her own disjointed family is for the four of them to go on a ‘family trip’. But is this likely to happen? An adventure with the two younger girls sounds more like a possibility. The film is in effect narrated by Hana. It’s a child’s perspective on a world she doesn’t totally understand and isn’t yet able to come to terms with. This means that writer-director Yoon Ga-eun’s film shifts between a child’s adventure and an adult family drama, as we learn more about both Hana and her ‘two families’. The film is the second feature by the director to look at the emotional lives of young girls, the first being The World of Us in 2016. The database of the Korean Film Council reveals that the film was released on 147 screens in South Korea, drawing 52,000 admissions and $353,000 to date at the box office.
There are five Korean films in the festival and I think it’s good that we get to see films like this. South Korea is a developed film culture which enables intelligent and enjoyable films like this to get a wide-ish release. I think a similar film would struggle to get such a release in the UK. But I think quite a few parents would like to share a film like this with their children. The film ultimately stands or falls on the performance of Kim Na-yeon as Hana and I think she does an excellent job. My only concern was the Korean diet on display. Hana has to produce a cookbook as a school holiday project and her only recipes seem to include meat, kimchi and far too many eggs and ketchup!
The Case for Global Film 