A young woman, fed up with her life of toil and failed romance in the big city, returns to her family’s small farm in the countryside to spend a year rebuilding her psyche in Little Forest, a small gem of a film. South Korean director Yim Soon-rye’s adaption of Daisuke Igarashi 2002 manga — which had previously been adapted as a four-hour, two-part feature in Japan by Junichi Mori — loses none of the depth of the original story (and in fact has more fully realized characters than in Mori’s version). It’s also anchored by strong performances from Kim Tae-ri (of Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden) and Moon So-ri (of Hong Sang-soo’s Hahaha).
Little Forest exists at the intersection of the slice-of-life genre — where intimate epiphanies and quotidian details take on deep, cosmic importance — and the foodie pleasures of something like Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat.
Hye-won (Kim) works to reconcile her past and future through the lessons taught to her about life and food by her mother (Moon) — who’s seen only in flashbacks — and figure out what to do with her life. The film follows the rhythms of nature, as Hye-won works her land and prepares seasonally-appropriate foods and drinks that are visually presented in a lush, Food Network style. Little Forest exists at the intersection of the slice-of-life genre — where intimate epiphanies and quotidian details take on deep, cosmic importance — and the foodie pleasures of something like Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. It’s a modest movie that nonetheless conjures a highly desirable world in which to luxuriate.
You can currently stream Yim Soon-rye’s Little Forest on Amazon Prime.
