Kim Bo-ra's House of Hummingbird is a coming-of-age story with a lot to admire, particularly how it traverses the commonality of its archetype to enunciate the fissures in the social fabric of society caused by South Korea's rapid industrialization and push towards modernity in the 1980s. The impressionable and transient temporal space of adolescence works well with the film's understated grammar, exhibiting through its narrative rhythms how the grand implications of modernization often distort and strain the familial unit and the social arrangements of society under the push for economic progress. Despite the film's narrative falling victim to over-dramatic moments, which are wildly unnecessary and somewhat out of place given its understated formalism, House of Hummingbird is a quietly affectionate story which touches on a litany of social issues while remaining steadfast in its over-arching message of self-love and self-worth for its young protagonist caught in a sea of change she cannot comprehend. The social transference of emotional and physical violence is displayed throughout House of Hummingbird, detailing how larger societal transformations subjugate and strain the social and familial cohesiveness, incubating violence within the communal spaces. While the film remains relatively empathetic to the acts of violence carried out by members of the family, fully recognizing these characters themselves are struggling to make sense of the world around them, the impressionably young woman at the center of our story becomes increasingly despondent given the conditions of her upbringing, bottling up her emotions and becoming passive towards any sense of injustice. It's through an encounter with a teacher at her school, who herself never quite fit into larger societal expectations, that this young child learns notion of self-worth, a notion which is fundamental to mental and physical health not only in a time of larger cultural transformation but to anyone who themselves may see the world differently.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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