The House of Us

Wholesome, sweet, yet with a touch of bitterness, I found refreshing to see such a tender film. I have seen the film at the Far East Film Festival 22, held online. I wasn't even planning to see it originally, but since I had access to all the films in the festival, I thought "why not", and from the first few minutes I realised that I chose very well. In what might feel an improper comparison to most, I found that this film sparks the same feelings that Miyazaki's "My Neighbour Totoro" or "Ponyo" exhale, albeit with a more mature target audience. As I mentioned, there's an interesting commistion between maturity and childhood themes. Despite being a story about children, there is nothing 'childish' about it. It's not a coming-of-age story, The three girls are more than aware of the things that happen with adults ever since the first scene, but they choose to cope with it through their games. Most films make the mistake of depicting children as naive and unaware of the "adult" world, but The House of Us does not. Having seen only a few South Corean films (but all dealing with darker themes) and generally being used to a much darker and grim tone of cinema, this film was very pleasant. It definitely made me want to see "The World of Us" and look up for Ga-eun Yoon's future films.