MFF 2020: Minari
MFFMinari is a touching and heartwarming story, expertly crafted by Lee Isaac Chung as he explores each one of his characters in detail. The main strength of the movie is not restricting the audience's perspective of the story, rather given time to all characters.
A “new start” is what the Yi family is looking for when they move from the West Coast to a rural city in Arkansas to pursue the American Dream. Jacob (Steven Yeun) has bought for his wife Monica (Han Ye-ri) and his two children David and Anne (newcomers Alan Kim and Noel Kate Cho) a mobile home and fifty acres of land with the intention of starting a farming activity, but things do not go as smoothly as the patriarch expects and problems start to arise for the family.
It takes time to adapt and the Yi family decides to bring Monica’s mother, Soonja (Youn Yuh-jung) to live with them and help with the kids while Jacob focuses on the farmland and Monica works as a chick sexer. Nevertheless things still don’t get better and new complications arise. Chung does not indulge on the misfortunes of the Yi family and the filmmaker knows exactly when to get closer to his characters or when to analyse one's struggles from a different mindset (a clear example of that is the first argument between the parents seen from the children perspective).
But the director’s masterful way of storytelling wouldn’t work without some essential elements, such as the wonderful cast ensemble and the brilliant technical aspects. The original score from Emile Mosseri stands out the most; the young American composer (whose The Last Black Man in San Francisco score brought him critical acclaim) once again delivers a mesmerising opus that works so effectively in showing the personal journeys David and Jacob have embarked on. While for the father Mosseri adopts melancholic passages to embody his struggles, for the child the composer uses more joyous and lively pieces to show the outside world seen through the lenses of the 8-year old kid. The cinematography and the editing are also worth mentioning; the sequences involving the characters around the rural landscapes are beautifully shot and mixed with the musical score, adds a poetic layer within the story.
As for the cast, Steven Yeun delivers another terrific performance after his masterful work as the enigmatic and ambiguous Ben in Lee Chang-dong’s Burning: the Korean-American actor excels in showing the optimistic and hopeful side within Jacob, especially in a pep talk with his son David early on in the movie. Yeun is even better in later scenes as he portrays the desperate state of the man through a more subdued approach, conveying all the emotions the character is feeling just with a glance. The actor shares superb chemistry with Han Ye-ri: each one of their scenes together, whether they represent happy or sad moments, are completely convincing and the actors create a mutual understanding of the relationship that explains why they will stick together in every occasion. Han is also effective in showing the doubts and the insecurities Monica herself has about this “new start”.
Alan Kim, in his first acting role, brings a very adorable and warming presence within David. The young actor gives a tremendous performance overall, his reactions to his parents’ problems are very touching, and he is also delightful in his contrasting relationship with Grandma as this represents a key aspect in David’s coming-of-age. The chemistry shared by Kim and Youn Yuh-jung is essential to the movie and Lee Isaac Chung has found the right tone in his material, which is neither too quirky nor over-sentimental in the more dramatic scenes. Veteran South-Korean actress, Youn Yuh-jung, renowned for her peculiar parlance and versatility, steals the show in each scene she’s in as she portrays an atypical grandmother, or at least to David’s “standards” (the grandmother doesn’t know how to bake cookies). The bitter relationship between the two changes when Grandma plants some seeds of Minari with David and they start getting closer. The exotic plant similar to parsley who entitles this wonderful movie does not only represents a meeting point between the two generations but also the “new start” the family was looking for as they can now plant, metaphorically and not, their roots for the future.
Minari is a flawless movie in every respect with a touching story about hope and perseverance at its core. This movie deserves all the praise it has been receiving and it has to be seen and supported by anyone who cares about this industry. Lee Isaac Chung really crafted something special that should not be forgotten in the years to come.