Wednesday, February 11, 2009

In Between Days



B

Directed by So Yong Kim

So Yong Kim's debut feature is a minimalist coming of age story that gives a refreshingly unvarnished look at the complexities of both personal relations and cultural assimilation from the perspectives of two young Koreans living in North America (in what appears to be the soul curshingly boring metropolis of Toronto).

Aimie, a Korean adolescent, has immigrated to North America with her mother, following what appears to be the seperation of her parents. She has difficulty assimilating and spends most of her time with her best friend Tran, also a Korean immigrant but who is significantly more assimiliated into his new cultural surroundings than Aimie. Tran and Aimie's friendship/romance is the focus of "In Between Days" and the film is almost solely devoted to exploring the complexities, misunderstandings, and disappointments of their relationship.

Kim's super low budget debut made it almost impossible to employ more than a few actors which means that the story revolves almost exclusively around Aimie and Tran with little time spent on anything else. This constraint turns out to be a strenght of "In Between Days" since so much time is spent dissecting Aimie and Tran's relationship, as well as their own specific personalities and quirks, that the two characters are so well developed that they could practically walk out of the screen at the end of the film. The results of this careful and meticulous development is a character study that goes far beyond what most feature length films can offer and the end result is both interesting and frustrating. On the one hand, Kim seems to have an accute sense of how relationships between youth function and she does an excellent job of crafting a relationship between Aimie and Tran that is at times tender and at times hurtful but always filled with the midunderstandings and complexities that are almost always present in adolescent relationships. The frustrations of Aimie and Tran, both of whom don't understand how to communicate their feelings to one another with any degree of success, will almost be universally recognized by anyone who once had a "friend" of the opposite sex who they secretely harbored romantic feelings for. On the other hand, however, Tran and Aimie's actions are sometimes at odds with their youth. Indeed, both Tran and Aimie sometimes shift rom extreme naiveté to calculated manipulation of the other in the same frame. It makes for compelling viewing but also hampers the film in some ways byrendering the actions of its protagonists as not always believeable.
Nevertheless, "In Between Days" succeeds as a careful and at times engrossing deconstruction of a male/female relationship that, for the most part, shines in its authentic protrayal of the difficulties of adolescence as well as the disappointments and trials of immigrants in North America.

2 comments:

Murf said...

I love the shot at Toronto!

JDM said...

The T.Dot always deserves some punishment!
Funnily enough, this film takes place in Winter so it makes Toronto look like the drabbest, most depressing place in North America...which of course, IT IS!!!