[K-Movie Night] Little Forest

by Dramaddictally

Welcome to K-Movie Night — a once-a-month feature where we microwave some popcorn, put on a face mask, and get cozy with a Korean movie from yesteryear. With so many films finally streaming (with subs!), now is the time to get caught up on all those movies we missed featuring our favorite drama actors.

Each month, we’ll pick a flick, write a review, and meet you back here to discuss whether or not it’s worth a watch. Super simple. All you have to do is kick up your feet and join us in the comments!

 
MOVIE REVIEW

Who the heck can resist Kim Tae-ri? (I’m betting not anyone that watched Twenty Five Twenty One.) And while we’re gearing up for her new drama slated to premiere in October, I couldn’t wait to have her back on my screen for a refresher on why I love her so much (hint: she’s a natural).

Little Forest has one of the most enticing trailers I’ve ever seen if you’re on the lookout for something soothing. Based on a slice-of-life manga (and subsequent two-part Japanese film), it looks like the kind of movie you can just sit back and sink into — and maybe get swallowed up by its serenity. Plus, the film, its famous female director (Yim Soon-rye), and both leading actresses were nominated for a slew of awards when it was released in 2018. And if all that wasn’t enough to convince me, they threw in Ryu Joon-yeol for good measure.

We begin in the winter. A quiet, dark, still, aloneness envelops our protagonist, HYE-WON (Kim Tae-ri), as she settles back into the rural house she grew up in. She’s just returned from Seoul, where her career and relationship didn’t work out as she hoped. And now she’s come back to hide out and ease her hunger — because the instant food in the big city just didn’t fill her up the way meals in the countryside can.

Impressively, we understand most of this visually. Hye-won arrives to the empty house cold and hungry, but soon she gets a fire going, ventures out into the snow to uproot cabbage from the frozen ground, and then prepares a warm stew that we watch her devour. In one wordless shot, we get the drift: here, her needs are being met.

Hye-won assures herself that she’s only staying a few days, but the course of the movie follows an entire year, through the four seasons, as she reacclimates to rural life. She has two friends in the village — one, EUN-SOOK (Jin Ki-joo), who’s never lived anywhere else and another, JAE-HA (Ryu Joon-yeol), who also lived in Seoul, but felt dejected by the monotony of taking orders and waiting for payday, and returned home to be a farmer.

The other presence in the film is Hye-won’s mother (Moon Sori) who’s actually just a strongly felt absence. We learn that right after Hye-won took the college entrance exams — preparing for her dream of moving to Seoul to study — she came home and her mother was gone, leaving only a note as a form of goodbye. Hye-won is heartbroken and angry and intends to live a good life to prove she doesn’t need her mother.

However, life in Seoul is not what she dreamed of. She didn’t find the answers she sought and she spends her quiet days in the village wondering if her mother ever found what she was looking for either. In fact, everything Hye-won does reminds her of her mom. The cooking, planting, picking, and preparing of food is all tied to her childhood, where she and her mom appear to have had a very close relationship after the death of Hye-won’s father when she was still small.

Her mother’s whereabouts is the only real tension in the movie, which is otherwise devoid of conflict or plot. This isn’t a story that progresses. Instead, it roots itself in the textures of everyday life: the craggy wooden floorboards and the softness of bedcovers atop. A stew that boils as kneaded dough is dropped into the broth. Glass jars on the kitchen sills with light shining through. There’s tactile vibrancy everywhere in this town and the art direction and cinematography are so good that there were moments when I swore I could smell the food or feel the country air across my skin.

In contrast, flashbacks to Seoul are bland and flat. There, Hye-won’s fridge is filled with food that’s going to rot because she’s too busy to eat it. Time in the countryside is different, where we follow her as she shovels snow, picks vegetables, makes meals from scratch, and eats, and eats, and eats. Literally, 50% of the movie is eating. But there’s an underlying question that pervades all these time-stretching activities: Is she right in the center of life? Or is this a distraction from life?

As we watch Hye-won go about her chores, there’s a moment when she says, “No matter how much I pluck the weeds, they grow like my worries.” Time keeps extending and as we get to autumn, to close the cycle of the year, Hye-won is still carrying out her days by keeping busy. The moment of reckoning is figuring out what’s really important. Yes, she’s come back to town to reclaim a life that’s familiar, but it’s also the life she lived with her mom.

This is a movie to watch for the sensations. The textures, colors, and somehow even tastes come through in a way that move the film from start to finish — while not much happens in the story. We know from the outset what the problems are. There are no great mysteries or high stakes. And yet, I followed along, like watching a stream flow continuously without the possibility of a real conclusion.

Still, while this may have been the purpose and point of the movie, the lack of conflict and connection left me feeling underwhelmed with the finale. Hye-won skipped out on a boyfriend back in Seoul without a word and has only ambivalent feelings toward him. Her mother’s motivations for disappearing remain murky. And the three friends come off as content to be around each other, but again, without any real attachment. In this world, people walk out at will and drop back in when they feel like it, and everyone welcomes them with open arms, rather than hurt feelings.

It’s pretty, serene, and it won’t upset you — but it also didn’t move me the way I hoped it would. Even as it’s visually and sensually rooted right in the ground with all those seeds that Hye-won plants, it’s a little disconnected emotionally. Or is that just another part of the point? That people, like crops, are on rotation, re-entering your life in cycles? Maybe what I’m reading as a lack of goodbyes is just a way to affirm that — along with the tomatoes and persimmons — the people you care about will surely be back around.

Join us in September for the next K-Movie Night and let’s make a party of it! We’ll be watching Love Reset (2023) and posting the review during the last week of the month.

Want to participate in the comments when it posts? You’ve got 3 weeks to watch! Rather wait for the review before you decide to stream it? We’ve got you covered.

 
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