With A Girl Of Black Soil (DVD) (Korea Version) DVD Region 3

The father, Choi Hye-gon (Jo Yung-jin) discovers that he is suffering from respiratory disease, but until the disease develops other complications, the mining company refuses to assist him with medical care. Finding a new job in his condition isn't easy, but Hye-gon is offered work delivering and selling fish at a market, and even if the work doesn't appear to be strictly legitimate, it's enough to give him a sense of worth and the money he needs to look after his family. He can't afford the special care that is needed for his mentally ill eleven year old son Tong-gu (Park Hyun-woo), but his nine year-old daughter Young-lim (Yu Yun-mi) looks out for the boy, who needs constant supervision as well as some help from his younger sister to fend off the other boys who make fun of him. They are a close family, sticking together and doing whatever it takes to get by, but when complications arise with Hye-gon's new job and the family are subsequently served with an eviction notice to move them out of the slum they live in, they find their mounting troubles start to overtake their means to resist.

With A Girl Of Black Soil takes us directly into those communities only glimpsed in Jeon Soo-il's previous film, but whose situation was nonetheless fully felt in the bleak, frozen, rundown, snow-patched locations. While the director's latest film is certainly a little more conventional in its depiction of poverty and misery endured by the Choi family who nonetheless put a brave face on things, it's in the use of locations that the director is again most effective. If there's a certain amount of dramatic contrivance in the narrative that pushes it towards melodrama, it's the use of locations that gives the film a deep authenticity, a real sense of how people in the mining communities of the province live, and the daily problems they have to deal with. The film consequently has all the social immediacy of Jia Zhangke's Still Life, and like the Chinese director, With A Girl Of Black Soil is Jeon Soo-il's direct response to the conditions he sees people in his country living in, people living in outlying communities, often forgotten about and not only by the country's filmmakers.

The cinematography of these locations is consequently astonishingly good, the almost monochromatic depiction of the contrasting banks of sharp black rocks and coal in a snow-capped environment further underlining the harshness of the conditions the characters live in, but significantly, there is one explosion of life and colour in the film in the form of Young-lim. Playing joyfully in the damp, dank openings of abandoned mine shafts with her brother, dancing and singing at the top of her voice, the young girl not only paints colourful pictures with crayon on paper and even on the very walls, but is even capable of expressing the struggle of life to succeed against the odds in even the most difficult of circumstances with a footprint flower in the snow. The magnificent performance of little Yu Yun-mi is one of almost heartbreaking intensity, holding the film together in the same way that her character holds her family together. Equally with both the dramatic situation and the film itself however, the severity of the circumstances and the pervasive misery would appear to be even beyond her limited means to alleviate.

DVD
With A Girl Of Black Soil is released in the Korea by Premiere Entertainment. The film is presented on a dual-layer disc, in NTSC format, and is Region 3 encoded.

Video
The qualities of the DVD presentation are much the same as Premiere's earlier release of the director's previous film Time Between Dog And Wolf. The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, but is not anamorphically enhanced. In all other respects however, the progressively encoded transfer is strong. The image is clear and well-toned with good detail and adequate black levels, the image never appearing overly processed as Korean transfers often can. The image is sharp throughout, with possibly just a hint of edge-enhancement showing up on occasions. It's in the colour design that the film's mood and character are primarily conveyed and again the reproduction of colours is strong, achieving a natural feel for the locations, balancing the almost monochromatic tone of the surroundings with occasional bursts of colour, the film always managing to achieve a good balance regardless of the lighting conditions. Although non-anamorphic, the image can be zoomed to fill a widescreen television screen without much loss of resolution, although this may emphasise the minor instances of shimmering on horizontal lines that can be detected. It's not a perfect transfer, but any issues are minor and with the strong cinematography, the film often looks very good indeed.

Audio
Only one soundtrack option is provided, the film's original Korean Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. The sound is clear and strong, with a nice dynamic range, good tone and more than adequate detail for the demands of the film.

Subtitles
Optional English subtitles are provided in a bold, clear, white font. There are only one or two minor errors and some of the phrasing is a little odd, but the translation is relatively good and seems to cover the film well.

Extras
The only extra feature is the film's original Trailer (2:21), which really piles on the misery.

Overall
By placing all the troubles of the world onto one small family, With A Girl Of Black Soil does tend to follow the standard grim depiction of poverty and misery in a small mining community, but the director Jeon Sool-il also manages to find positive values there. Beyond the contrivances of the plot however, the film is most successful in its visual language, depicting a side of Korean society rarely seen on the screen with some degree of authenticity. Premiere Entertainment's Region 3 DVD release is barebones and non-anamorphic, but with a strong progressive transfer and a surround soundtrack, the presentation more than meets requirements.

by Noel Megahey - DVD Times