Thursday Movie Picks: Non English-Language Movies

In the 37th week of 2020 for Wandering Through the Shelves' Thursday Movie Picks. We return to the subject of non-English language films as it’s often been a common subject with Thursday Movie Picks for the past few years. It’s often where everyone discovers something from another country to show that we’re not alone in whatever people are dealing with. With South Korea being a major force in the film industry due to the fact that Parasite won a shitload of awards including the Palme d’Or and multiple Academy Awards including Best Picture. Here are my three picks of gems from South Korea:

1. The Housemaid

The film by Kim Ki-young is widely considered to be the film that paved the way for modern-day Korean cinema dating back to 1960. It is a film about a young woman who becomes a housemaid for a middle-class family where she would create chaos and do things that would be troubling. Especially as the patriarch who is a music teacher for a factory begins an affair with the maid and it eventually becomes torrid and torturous to the point that the family dynamic unravels.

2. The Way Home

Lee Jeong-hyang’s family film is a strangely accessible drama about a young boy from the city who is forced to live with his mute grandmother in a rural village while his mother goes to the city to find work. The boy is spoiled and doesn’t know life in a small village as there’s a scene of him wanting fried chicken but the grandmother only knows how to make chicken a certain way. Yet, the bond between grandson and grandmother does strengthen as it helps the boy find ways to communicate with his grandmother and speak for her in the small village.

3. Treeless Mountain

From So Yong Kim is this family drama about two young girls who are forced to fend for themselves after their mother left to find their estranged father while they live with their aunt who is an irresponsible person. It also showcases these two girls who lived in the city and then move to a small town as the changes in their environment is shocking yet they find a way to get things done. It isn’t an easy film to find yet it engaging for its exploration of two young girls bonding as well as try to find hope during troubled times.

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