Ah, 'Little Forest'
If you want a glimpse of me, watch this 2018 Korean movie based on the 2002 Japanese manga by Daisuke Igarashi
Sometimes, if you are very still, joy comes to you — in a most unexpected way. Not their joy, all yours.
That’s what is happening to me in the midst of chaos today: bake sourdough for delivery before Tina gets off from work, ask my husband to do the honors alone (he has to drop off the will for updating anyway), baby my right forefinger after it locked in the middle of tearing roasted nori for dinner last night, take a shower in between my own work on a musicians union newsletter that’s three months late.
It took quite a while to get here.
I’d heard rumblings about “Little Forest,” a 2018 movie directed by Yim Soon-rye (“Whistle Blower”) in South Korea, starring Kim Tae-ri (Hye-won), “When Life Gives You Tangerines’” Moon So-ri (Hye-won’s mom), and one of my favorite actors from “Reply 1988,” Ryu Jun-yeol (Jae-ha) — the guy doing a slow drive-by early on.
But I couldn’t find it on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime. Not even my recently downloaded and paid for Viki.
A few days ago, however, karma dropped in my lap. It’s on Tubi, and it’s free!
I don’t want to work or bake, or do much of anything but sit back in my tank top and underwear and lose myself in a life I always longed for: to deal with major failure — and the harsh reality of the world’s expectations — by running off into the woods, to cook and bask and hike and run into one or two singularly wonderful individuals.
On my terms.
Whenever I’m overwhelmed, my mind goes to a familiar, comforting scenario, my own version of “Little Forest”: I’m coming in from a six-mile run in the pouring rain, my dogs are running over for pets and their dinner, I take a shower, order Thai take-out from Mekong in Honolulu, and watch the world outside disappear. I live alone, I get to write whatever I want, visit a shelter to volunteer, and don’t have to answer to anybody else.
This one’s mine, all mine…
Update: when they say “Little Forest” is a slice-of-life escape, they really mean it. Nothing happens, other than the passing of the seasons and farming, and maybe, a little context, which leads to quiet realizations:
Hye-won’s mom does really love her. Read the letter
Hye-won turns into her mom, and that’s a good thing, it’s helping her thrive despite disappointments and loss
Taking a break, not having any answers, going with the flow..also a good thing
Food cures almost every ill
I want a Jindo dog
Success is peace of mind, no matter where you choose to go
It’s okay to check out. You’re not the problem, the world is.
I had a personal realization. Those dried persimmons, such a work of art getting them ready for winter hanging like dangly earrings in the crisp fall air. I used to hate eating them when I was a child living in Korea (for the first three years or so) in the 1960s, I ate so much. But I’m coming around, coming back to where I came from, and these sweet, sticky dried persimmons, bright as the sun, are actually better than that three-year-old child understood.
Full circle movie moment: Hye-won’s mom, played by actress Moon So-ri, is seen preparing persimmons for drying, talking about their wonders, and immediately, I went to “When Life Gives You Tangerines.”
In a later scene, when Oh Ae-sun’s daughter Geum-myeong is being courted by artist Park Chung-seob, the whole family’s in her restaurant and she’s off in another room opening a gift from Chung-seob’s mom Bun-hui — hand-dried persimmons as the ultimate gesture of thanks.
Was that a serendipity, or an intentional reference?