The hummingbird in House of Hummingbird (2018), the debut film of 38-year old Korean film director Kim Bora, is the 14-year old Eunhee. She is the youngest in a Seoul family, growing up in a striving-to-become-middle-class family in the 1990’s of economically expanding South Korea. Her childhood gets crushed in a toxic family environment where there is no place nor energy for personal interest and love. Unheard, unloved and possibly unwanted she walks the streets, trying to overcome her loneliness and to find meaning and love in relationships.

Childhood neglect in non-existent or dysfunctional family settings where selfishness abounds Is a  regularly recurring frame in film for a coming-of-age story. It gave me flashbacks to films like Russian Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Loveless (2017), Chinese Bo Hu’s An Elephant Sitting Still (2018) and the documentary film Scheme Birds (2019) from Ellen Fiske and Ellinor Hallin about a teenage girl in a decaying Scottish mill town. Each one of these films, in very different ways, show us what can happen to children who grow up in ugly, nihilistic environments where love, beauty and warmth has disappeared. And they make us aware that this happens today to young people everywhere around this globe!

The Swedish title of this film is A Hummingbird’s Life, laying the emphasis on the girl Eunhee’s life. The English title leads my thoughts to the family setting of Eunhee. The film opens with Eunhee coming home from school to her family’s apartment in some anonymous high-rise building. She knocks on the door, screaming ‘I am here’, but no one hears her, setting the tone for what goes on inside. Then we meet the family, her constantly quarreling parents who only have interest in their rice-cakes selling business. An abusive father for whom you only can score with academic credentials. An older brother who takes his father’s favoritism as a right to bully the others. An older sister, who has given up and only tries to squeeze out of the apartment to go partying. A home with a lot of screaming and no personal interest in one another.

From the beginning on we are drawn into the dynamics of loneliness in a loveless family. Everyone of them is occupied with their own things, neglecting the feelings and needs of others. When Eunhee needs to see a doctor fearing a malignant lump below her ear, she has to go alone. Everyone is too busy with their own interests. Eunhee is the little bird, who is desperately looking for friendship and protection. Her home does not offer it. Her mother is indifferent to her. The school environment does not offer any support.

The only ray of light that gets through to her is through her new tutor Yong-Yi. Carrying a lot of restlessness and pain herself, she starts to see that she may have something to offer to this young girl. She asks her the question:

”Among all the people you know, how many really understand what’s going on inside you?”

For the first time, Eunhee meets empathy, understanding and personal warmth. And that might make the difference.

Inner ugliness, expressed in selfishness and indifference combined with outer ugliness expressed in impersonal, dreary living complexes becomes the breeding ground for hopelessness, despair and criminality. The little ones, the hummingbirds are the first ones to be crushed in that kind of world.

House of Hummingbird showed me in a very softly spoken manner that everyone needs someone who takes a true interest, offers a smile and asks a helpful question.

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