This is evidently Kim's 10th feature and, no, I hadn't heard of him either. What's so startling about discovering this filmmaker is not that he constructs beautiful shots or has the patience and passion to capture the natural world on film. Let's face it, those qualities kind of go with the turf in higher-end East Asian cinema. But out of the bare bones of this movie -- basically a teacher, a student, their secluded realm and a girl who arrives from the outside world -- Kim crafts a compelling narrative that feels both realistic and primal, like a folk tale that has partially migrated into the modern world. This one's a real discovery -- don't miss it.

Lastly, amid all the exciting documentaries of the season, I'm afraid that John and Katie Cadigan's memorable little film, "People Say I'm Crazy," has gotten lost. That's really too bad; I've never seen anything quite like it, and if it doesn't make you cry two or three times, you need a heart transplant. John Cadigan, now in his early 30s (he looks much older), is an artist who has battled a severe psychotic illness since his undergraduate years. With the help of his sister Katie (an experienced filmmaker), he made this movie in an effort to capture mental illness from the inside.

There are no glamorous "Beautiful Mind"-style effects in "People Say I'm Crazy," just a journey through the looking glass into the world of the borderline-functional mentally ill. Cadigan and most of his friends are those slightly funny-looking people we tolerate in coffee shops but generally don't look at -- people who struggle every day to quell voices, combat paranoid delusions and deal with the effects of mind-numbing medications that can lead to catatonia and obesity. While the Cadigans' film is relatively artless, you'll never forget it. John Cadigan's heartbreaking baby steps back toward "normalcy," and his attempt to communicate with us, epitomize those virtues Hollywood films are supposed to demonstrate but never do: honesty, courage, family love, the miraculous resilience of the human spirit.

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