Director Kim Bo Ra explored the joy and pain of adolescence in The House of Hummingbird. Life for an adult can be chaotic and overwhelming, at fourteen, Eun Hee was neither a child nor an adult. Her world was confined to the two places she didn’t fit in---school and her family.

“How many do you understand?”
Eun Hee’s family stresses education to the point that her brother easily flies into rages and beats her, her older sister has begun skipping school, and Eun Hee has a tendency to fall asleep in class. At home her parents come across as disinterested in her or verbally abusive. Dinners are eaten in silence or with the father berating them. When she has a health concern that worsens, Eun Hee has to deal with it all by herself. Anything resembling emotional support is in short supply. She has an on-again, off-again boyfriend and a best friend she attends Chinese tutoring school with. It is her new tutor who actually sees her and lets her know she’s valuable just as she is that touches Eun Hee and frees something within her.

“We should all live separately.”
There were times watching this I was waiting for someone in Eun Hee's family to snap and commit a mass murder. Her parents would go from a no holds barred screaming match and using a lamp as a shiv to acting like nothing happened the next morning. Vicious words were thrown around at the children and physical blows. Then everyone would shove all the frustrations, anger, and fear somewhere deep inside and live in silence with each other. The two sisters’ needs were especially invisible with a brother in the house. Their mother was in a vicious cycle as she’d had to drop out of school in order for her brother to finish high school, a man who never amounted to anything. As Eun Hee learned from her tutor, even a quality university education did not guarantee happiness.

“Will my life start to shine someday?”
Dealing with physical abuse, insecurities, and fickle friends, Eun Hee learned from her tutor that as long as she had her two hands and could move them, she still had the ability to change things. Eun Hee found that friendships and connections made life more bearable or even simply jumping on a trampoline on a sunny day. Despite the chaos around her, Eun Hee’s resilient spirit began to soar. Bad things happen but so do good.

“What’s the right way to live?
Somedays I feel like I know but I don’t really know for sure.
I just know that when bad things happen, good things happen, too.
And that we always meet someone and share something with them.
The world is fascinating and beautiful.”

23 August 2024