S IS FOR SOUTH KOREA

My first novel is also about the crisis of adolescent girlhood in the 1990s (with a twist, though), so I’m very attracted to all works on the subject. And this exploration of the inner world of Eunhee, a South Korean teenager who doesn’t fit in, worked on so many levels. Masterfully played by first-time actor Park Ji-Hoo, Eunhee is dream cast to portray a powerhouse of awkwardness. The way she can’t find a space for herself at home, at school, in love and friendship, is so painfully resonant, that I found myself shifting in my seat because of the deja vu, of the truth of it.

The film is loose, spacious, like a day of a teenager when the school is off, and sometimes I found that it was too encumbered with the need to sear, not hurt, to work better. But it also captured the insulated nature of adolescence so well that perhaps form merely followed function.

House of Hummingbird (Beol-sae), 2018
Director: Kim Bora

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