If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Does the same rule apply to a little girl? Treeless Mountain, the latest film by Sundance Award winner So Yong Kim, tackles the theory with a simple answer: Children, like trees, have a “quiet resilience” to detrimental change.

The film follows the tale of two sisters, Jin (Hee-yeon Kim) and Bin (Song-hee Kim), ages six and four respectively, who are yanked by the roots of their single parent home by their inept mother (Soo-ah Lee) in South Korea. This occurs quickly in the film, as if the overwhelming events are happening to the viewer as well. The girls are left with their somewhat villainous (but really just indifferent) “Big Aunt” (Mi-hyang Kim), while their mother goes off to find their absent father.

In one of the most heart-wrenching scenes in the film, the girls’ mother hands them a plastic piggy bank and tells the girls that when the piggy bank is filled, that is when she will return. And in silence, the girls watch as their mother loads onto the bus and out of their lives.

Deciding that filling up the piggy bank faster would bring their mother home sooner, the girls resort to killing, roasting and selling grasshoppers (which they actually ate with the rest of the cast and crew during filming). With an adult, business-savvy skill (which includes cuteness), the girls watch the street vendors to learn how to sell them to the passers-by on the streets instead of attending school or other child-like activities.

When the girls attempt to call their mother, the number she left is “disconnected,” just like she is. How a mother could pass her children off is beyond me. But there is hope, for the children build their own values and take care of each other, even singing a cute song about grasshoppers that would touch even the soulless person.

Jin, the eldest, is pulled out from school and essentially becomes the caretaker for her little sister. Early on in the film, Jin is seen as wise beyond her years, with an understanding of the events occurring around her before they are even laid out to her. The camera focuses mainly on Jin’s longing expression, hoping that her mother will return and she could have a loving family. Sadly, her eyes often convey that she knows in her heart that she has a broken family.

To counter Jin’s adult attitude, Bin evokes an adorable child-like innocence throughout the film. Even when she is placed in a serious situation, she has an illuminating smile that you can’t help but love. Learning from her sister, she too wants to take care of others. When her piggy bank’s eye falls off, she promises to take care of it and draws in a new eye for it. She then cradles the pig in her arms and asks “Piggy, when is Mommy coming home?” Not once does Bin lose hope in her mother returning to them.

What makes the film so intriguing is its mixture of fairy tale-like qualities, like Bin wearing a blue princess dress, and its documentary style of filmmaking. The camera is constantly focused on Jin and Bin’s eyes, which emit a puppy-dog-at-the-pound quality. The adults are just blended characters that come and go in the lives of the children, which show how quickly they will take their leave. Like a tree in a storm, the girls are forced to deal with the harsh environment and hold on for as long as they can on their own. They learn to support themselves and to somehow maintain a feeling of normalcy, as seen when Jin wears remnants of her old school uniform. The documentary feel is also found through the absence of background music, which adds to the realistic and heartbreaking quality.

What makes the film even more devestating is the fact that the events were based on So Yong’s own life growing up in Korea. As a writer, producer and director, Kim was able to have both creative and practical influence on the outcome of the film, using it as an extension of a short story and a “letter to my mother” she had written.

Treeless Mountain covers the themes of modern day family, hope, abandonment and coming-of-age, even if the protagonists are under the age of ten. As Kim stated, the film concerns “Life, growing up and how children survive.”

In life, there is no soundtrack playing in the background. There is no swelling, heart-breaking indie song to indicate when sad moments occur. And that’s what makes this film so brilliant. It captures, sadly, an everyday occurrence without the melodrama of an avant-garde Hollywood film. You are just left with two little girls who not only need to, but choose to, develop roots with each other.