project film school

a trip to the theater : in between days (directed by so yong kim)

as i sit down to write about this film, it's fitting that right next to me fellow members of my media collective and i are editing a scene for our upcoming documentary with the working title of evolve - it is fitting because the scene we are working on is about a young teenage immigrant and his adolescent experience.

since it played at sundance this past year, many have compared the film to other tales of awkward girls coping with and working through life as an adolescent. and deservingly so, they highlight the strikingly honest performance of jiseon kim in portraying the teenage protagonist. but to simply call so yong kim's film about a young korean girl sorting through teenagerdom a portrait of youthful angst, ignores what really helps to tie the film together, the location of her journey, toronto.

from the opening shot, where the young lady of our story, aimie, tells her absent father about the coldness of toronto, it is clear that where she is, is as relevant as who she is in the story. the brisk moments of voiceover to relay the letters she sends to her father, create the foundation for the plot of aimie's crush on her best friend tran.

it is location that sets her apart as on outsider in terms of language, defines her as a young woman without a father figure and also as having a mother focused only on her educational success and not on her emotional state. these elements make every glance that kim's aimie gives and every move she makes, take on a irreplaceable silent meaning.

the immigrant perspective allows the film to forgo traditional plot points and instead become an observational journey that feels instead of tells. it abandons the overused and too often seen and in turn aimie's story transcends her longing for tran to tell her he likes her and enters into a territory everyone, young and old, can relate to - an unfortunate rarity in films today.