Minari. It is the name of a Korean plant that resurrects, with the purifying and lucky effect, explains director Lee Isaac Chung, in an interview given by the National Public Radio. It grows in places where nothing else can grow. This plant is also « the only thing that really thrived on this farm ».
A scenario from his own memories
Here the director evokes that of his childhood, the first inspiration of his story. Story narrates the new start of a family in the middle of the Arkansas Plains, moving into a two-wheeled house -theme irretrievably echoing the recent Nomadland. An idea of Jacob, the father, performed by Steven Yeun, which was admired last time in the Korean thriller Burning by Lee Chang-dong in 2018. Very soon, we see the show of a couple who are losing sight of each other, no longer able to understand each other, before the eyes of David, an eight-year-old boy in full construction, played by the very promising Alan Kim.
This new feature film won numerous awards at the Oscars and Golden Globes, as well as at the Sundance Festival. No wonder to learn that the script is nothing other than an outbreak of childhood memories of the director. Their story is his borrowing: and his experience is obvious, so certain scenes sound right. Paper planes launched in the midst of parental quarrel by the two children are most cathartic, having the power to bring out in each spectator a host of buried memories.
From one culture to another, from one emotion to another
The red thread of the feature film lies in this perpetual alternation between softness and hardness, always manipulated with subtlety, carried to wonders by the play of the children.
Lee Isac Chung tangles American and Korean cultures, mixing from beginning to end fantasy and disillusionment of the American dream and integration of a grandmother who « Smells Korea »According to his grandson. Dialogues are sometimes serious, sometimes funny, especially those that David and his grandmother don't know each other. They discover themselves over the days between cowy, humor, and ultimately tenderness. A film that seeks its identity, like each of its protagonists, in short, but touching despite everything.
The way Lee Isaac Chung has filmed nature often refers to the one used by Terrence Malik: aerial, poetic, out of time. Like this eponymous plant, true metaphor for a hope that always ends up reborn, no matter what obstacles to cross.
First article on MaG, welcome to Lea! It's a pleasure to read you. 😉
I can't help it. Bravo Léa.
Yes, welcome to Lea whose fineness of the pen is equal to his artistic sensitivity!