Since watching a quartet of Korean films at the Glasgow Film Festival,I've been keeping a look out for other new titles from Korea appearing at festival line-ups. Looking at the list of final films up for viewing at the Borderlines Film Festival,I was happy to spot this movie,which led to me moving on to a viewing.

View on the film:

Moving in with the family, debut producer/writer/director Dan-bi Yoon & cinematographer Ji-hyeon Kim meticulously hold the bond which the multi-generational family build in the house with restrained, French New Wave style mid-shots,which frame the family together.

Holding back from big, emotive close- ups,and spending considerable time following each family member going from place to place and travailing with fluid dolly-shots, Yoon paints the household with pastel colours,which become increasingly vibrant as the family members warm to each other.

Following the disruption of the family caused by a divorce, the screenplay by Yoon wonderfully captures with a delicate quality from each family member picking up a broken piece, and slotting it into a image where the whole of the family, is stronger then the separate parts, with Yoon having a stronger sense of unity come out of the divorce,as the family moves on.

A beautiful, delicate intimate look at a family going through a crisis but remaining strong and focused. Sensitive, observational and realistic performances create a sense of a bittersweet irresistible home. Definitely a promising new filmmaker.

A father, his teenage daughter and his young son move into the home of his father, a sick old man, to spend the summer with him. Although one of the reasons would be to care for the elderly, the truth is also that the father's economic situation is precarious (he sells shoes on the street) and he can no longer afford a home. Then the father's sister is added to the family group, an aunt with a very good relationship with her nephews and with a marital crisis.

With the original title of something like Brothers on a Midsummer Night, in this her debut feature the Korean director Yoon Dan-bi portrays the daily life of this temporarily assembled family, which faces as best it can, with a spirit between resigned (and between depressive and rebellious in the case of the adolescent daughter) a future that is certainly financially and emotionally uncertain, with an absence of the children's mother who is making herself felt. The director shows love for her creatures, but the extreme naturalism of the film, which abounds in scenes that do not contribute to the development of a dramatic progression (a progression that the director surely did not intend either) and the almost immediate muffling and deactivation of situations conflict personally plunged me several times into absolute boredom. And that important things happen in the movie...

This film won the Special Jury Prize of the 35th Mar del Plata International Film Festival