Titel: Beol Sae | House of Hummingbird
About the movie:
We are in 1994, a year in which South Korea has undergone a number of profound changes. During this time Eunhee (Park Ji-hu) lives, who has just entered the eighth grade. It is not an easy time for them. At home the parents argue and often ignore Eunhee, her brother beats her regularly, at school she is bored by her classmates and the class teacher has written on the flag that the pupils tell each other on if they don’t give 100% for the school. A little light is all she gets from a close friend and she secretly meets a boy she has fallen in love with. After school she usually has to work for her father, who runs a shop in a market hall. She either has to help produce food or deliver orders. In the evening, the money earned is silently counted in the living room. No wonder that Eunhee doesn’t have much free time left over to escape from everyday life, but every free moment is savoured. One day we accompany Eunhee and her best friend to a private Chinese tuition where she meets the teacher Young-ji (Kim Sae-byuk). She recently took over the private tuition. Unlike most of the adults from her everyday life, Young-ji is very understanding and radiates a lot of care, which Eunhee takes in more than gratefully and also uses for herself. For example, after Eunhee had a fight with her girlfriend, it’s Young-ji who catches her during an Oolong tea instead of lessons and above all listens to her.
But the next problem is already in the offing, because Eunhee has recently begun to feel a small knot under her ear. In the end, she informs her mother, who sends her alone to a doctor. After a biopsy, however, he passes her on to a hospital, because he does not have the necessary means for a 100% diagnosis. While she waits in the hospital together with her father, he shows an emotional side to his daughter for the first time, because he bursts into tears for a short moment. Shortly afterwards, the two learn that removing the knot can entail risks such as hemiplegia, but the operation is necessary because the health risk is too high for Eunhee. When she wakes up alone again after the operation, Young-ji appears alongside her mother and her best friend during her recovery period, which of course makes her most happy. After she was allowed to leave the hospital and her everyday life is back, she of course also wants to go to private lessons again, but when she arrives there, a new teacher suddenly appears in the room. When asked, Eunhee finds out that Young-ji quit her job and wouldn’t come until noon on Sunday to pick up her things. Of course, Eunhee waits for the teacher on Sunday, but the two don’t meet, because the boss gave her wrong information. On another day, back at school, she experiences several students running through the corridors in excitement and talking about the fact that a big bridge just collapsed and several people died in an accident (it was the Seongsu bridge, which collapsed early in the morning in October 1994). On television you can see pictures of several cars and a bus plunging into the depths. When Eunhee sees these pictures, she panics because it is the route her sister always has to take by bus to get to the city. But fate comes to a good end for her family, because her sister was a little late in the morning and missed the bus. A few days later a parcel lands at Eunhee’s house. It’s an empty sketchbook (she told Young-ji that she likes to draw comics) and a book she lent to the teacher as well as a short letter. Based on the sender’s address she wants to visit Young-ji personally, but the door isn’t opened by her, but by her mother and she doesn’t have good news for Eunhee.
Conclusion:
The film conveys a very depressing mood, which you can surely see from my film description. However, I would have liked to have seen some more positive moments in Eunhee’s life and not just a hell of a ride through various depths to the bitter end. Only the rare moments Eunhee could spend with the teacher Young-ji could cheer me up. These moments were like a bright light on the otherwise dark horizon of her life. Apart from that, the movie offers a somewhat different view of the world of South Korea, which also doesn’t only have sunny sides.
Actors:
Park Ji-hu (Eunhee)
Kim Sae-byuk (Youngji)
Lee Seung-yeon (Mutter)
Jeong In-gi (Vater)
Director:
Kim Bo-ra
Information about the film incl. short film excerpt:
https://www.berlinale.de/en/programm/berlinale_programm/datenblatt.html?film_id=201913130
Pictures from the Q&A at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt:
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