Review: Minari

It's hard to put into words how much Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari means to someone like me; I find that I am not usually represented on screen. I grew up in Tennessee as a church-going, admittedly "white-washed," 2nd generation Korean-American. My family lived a short distance away from my maternal grandmother, who ended up moving in with us after being diagnosed with dementia. I was very young when my grandma still lived on her own, a little older than David (Alan Kim) in the movie, and I remember feeling very much the same towards her growing up as David does for the majority of the film. I was resentful that she couldn’t speak English, that she always smelled like ginseng, that she didn’t know how to bake cookies (she did, however, know that my sister and I loved Chips Ahoy, and always had it in stock just for us). As I watched David and Soon-Ja (Youn Yuh-Jung) spend time together in Minari, I felt I was watching all the beautiful parts of my early life that I, as a selfish and stupid kid, had taken for granted. Things as simple as walking with my grandma in her garden, holding her hand, hearing her speak to me in Korean; it is only now that I see clearly before me what the love of a grandmother looks like.

I haven't lived there for a long time – it's been nearly eight years by now – and I realize I've forgotten a significant part of that time in my life up until seeing this movie. However, I still remember minute details, ones which any Asian-southerner would recognize, and which appear throughout the film: the jars of lychee jellies repurposed as storage containers under Anne’s (Noel Cho) desk, the neatly folded pile of cushions and blankets in the corner of David’s room, and the small plastic pitcher full of cold barley tea found during the Lee family’s dinner with Paul (Will Patton) near the end of the movie. These specific characteristics build the world of the film in a manner that I personally have never experienced before. Too often props are aestheticized and, indeed, Orientalized to signal that a space belongs to an Asian family; gaudy fans and paintings of tigers tend to line their walls, always covered in calligraphy. While many households have fans and calligraphy as decoration – mine certainly does – they are generally depicted in films as caricatures of themselves, displayed as brashly as a mounted deer bust rather than incorporated fluently into the space.

Moreover, it is not just elements of Korea that shine through this film, but of the Southeast as well. Many scenes illustrate the beauty of the Arkansas/Oklahoma landscape, perfectly capturing the softness of the grass, the sweltering heat, the quiet nature surrounding the house. When David and Soon-Ja walk through the forest to the Minari stream, the green hues of the trees are clean and crisp, and you can almost feel the fresh air fill your lungs. Later, when the family – Jacob (Steven Yeun), Monica (Yeri Han), Anne, and David – drive out to Oklahoma City, you can feel the weight of the hot summer air pressing down on their clothes and the humidity dripping as beads of sweat down their faces. These details are not forced or exaggerated, but much like the distinctly Korean-American props in the house, they are integrated seamlessly into the visual language of the film.

The auditory aspect is another example of fluidity in the filmic space, both within and beyond the diegesis. Sounds of nature – birds, crickets, cicadas – envelope every scene in a subtle symphony of noise, without ever becoming distracting or overpowering. The score, composed by Emile Mosseri, is tender and heart-warming, usually featuring a gentle piano accompanied by a stringed instrument or soft voices. Notably, it does not involve a gayageum or a taepyeongso or some other traditional Korean instrument – as many other films tend to do – for those are not sounds that characterize the Korean-American experience. Then, of course, there is the most important auditory language: the Korean language itself.

The language barrier is one of, if not the most, significant aspect of immigrant narratives. All three adults – Jacob, Monica, and Soon-Ja – struggle with English, though to varying degrees. Although Anne and David are bilingual, many second-generation Asian-Americans, and second-generation immigrants in general, do not speak their native language, making it difficult to connect to family and others in their communities. This was my experience growing up, as my parents feared that by speaking Korean at home my English skills would become impaired. However, regardless of comprehension, the very sound of spoken Korean, in addition to the Korean-style of broken English, is a comfort to this niche audience of people who know intimately the intonations and inflections of the language.

I've never felt understood on screen, at least not as fully as I did watching this movie. The Asian-American experience is one of conflicting syncretism, of two cultures, both of which the individual simultaneously wishes to conform and oppose, mixed together into one unique cultural identity. All of its subtle details of Minari, its exact and nuanced illustrations of the first/second generation immigrant family, culminate in a perfect rendition of this identity that I and many others know intimately but have never seen in a film before. Needless to say, it affected me in ways I find I cannot fully describe. There are times in which I forget the power of film, and the impact it can have on its audiences, but seeing Minari allowed me to remember; for a brief and beautiful moment I was able to feel like I was back at home.