Movie: Little Forest (Korean: 리틀 포레스트)
Based on Manga: Little Forest
Released: 2018

I watched this movie for the second time. Well, I tried to watch it before but didn’t go past the winter. I thought the movie was slow for me. It turns out everything has its timing. Just like Hae Won’s mother used to tell her, in cooking, as in life, everything has timing. For me it was tonight.

At first, I didn’t understand. Why would a mother, a loving mother leave her daughter without saying anything. Just like Hae Won, I didn’t understand her reasons, her letter. But now I do.

I love everything about the movie. The relaxing village atmosphere, the cinematography depicting all seasons, the detailed description and making of all the food, realistic dialogues, the acting, the friendship, the music, the sounds, everything. It felt like taking a break from the daily life. Not quite stopping or quitting, but, taking a break under the refreshing shadow of a tree from the scorching struggles of life, of making a living. Like not worrying about weeding the fields and just sitting under the tree and eating a tomato. Something like that.

I am not that well versed with movies and story telling through the movies so sometimes I don’t understand the little things, sometimes I have to rely on the characters to tell me what it all means and I like when they do that. I knew why Hae Won came back. She couldn’t make it in the city, she just ran away from that life. A life she thought she needed, and wanted, she left in pain, in failure. She was embarrassed to come back to a place where she was abandoned by her mother, or so she had believed.

Life is like that sometimes. I always wanted to run away, I have done so many times, under creative excuses. Keeping busy helping others plant their trees so we don’t have to think about dealing with our own problems. But, once you stop running away, once you stop to think about your own life, you can get answers for many if not all the questions. When you don’t find the answers, you can at least sleep under the stars and have a drink with your close friends.

At the end Hae Won understood her mother didn’t abandon her and she didn’t have to run away anymore, she just needed to create her own little forest to take a relaxing break when life was too hard. She needed to have a place to come back to. We all do.

That is Little Forest, and so much more! Watch it, I recommend. I loved it and I hope you do too.