#FILMFRIDAYS: MINARI
Year: 2020
Director: Isaac Lee Chung
A brief note before we begin:
I have decided to start writing about cinema again. Beyond needing a helpful distraction from my very distracted life, I am doing this because I fear that I am slowly forgetting the language of cinema — the visual vocabulary of scene and score I have built through consistent engagement and exploration of the medium. I watch and more worryingly enjoy a lot less films these days and while I initially attributed this to the demands of my current adulting attempt, I fear it may be more than that. There is a crushing impatience when engaging films recently that reminds me of a similar phase before I stopped actively reading and writing fiction, a rot that I am still struggling to escape from.
So I am hoping to in a sense, correct this and ‘save my dear cinematic soul’ by resurrecting this blog. Unfortunately, my struggle with writing about cinema precedes my struggle with watching cinema so naturally I am also worried about being able to sustain this easter of expression. But consistent I must be so I will try to write once a week or at the very least once a month about films that I watched and enjoyed and think you might enjoy too. Ideally, I should try to properly convince you on why you would enjoy these films but that won’t always be the case because that is not really the goal (Remember, I am trying to save my soul?). I will mostly work with a two-paragraph formula of plot and highlight but will sometimes go into more detail if I can find the words. The writing won’t always be great but it will exist and that is all that matters.
So thank you and wish me luck. If you are new to my blog, you can read the old stuff before you dig in.
I remember watching Burning, Lee Chang-dong’s 2018 South-Korean psychological thriller and being instantly struck by a sense of familiarity. This familiarity came not from the setting or the skin of the actors but the story, one which subtly explores class, ambition and family in a way that felt less like a revelation and more like a memory. It felt like a Nigerian story I have heard and a Nollywood film that I wanted so badly to be made. This strong sense of thematic universality has followed me with other Asian dramas like Shoplifters and Parasite, last year’s Oscar winner. It has found me again with Minari.
Minari is a semi-autobiography based on Chung’s childhood and is set in 1980 rural Americana. It tells the tale of a Korean-American family that moves from California to an Arkansas farm for the chance for a more successful life and struggles that come with try to keep both family and farm alive.
Minari contains largely Korean dialogue but is largely about the American dream and the terrifying but yet hopeful uncertainty that comes with it. Beyond its American dreaminess, Chung’s brilliant exploration of the complexity of family is universal in its themes and yet personal in its storytelling. Minari is a moving and occasionally funny portrait of the inner and intimate bits of domestic family life. Chung’s elegant storytelling is further elevated by masterful acting performances and anchored by Emile Mosseri’s soulful score.
One of (Modern) Nollywood’s greatest sins is a weird aversion to nuance — an impatience with detail and character usually for the sake of moving the plot along. But it is the little things that drive and endure culture — these small explorations that connect us in very big ways. Films like Minari should remind us that the Nollywood game-changer that we have all been waiting for might not be a loud 3-hour crime epic but a small and silent film that contains extended scenes about a Lagos family making Egusi with no meat for dinner.
To stress this idea of universality, I end this with a poem that I wrote (in 2015!) about the resilience of our roots even when in alien soil.
Enjoy and see you next time. (Hopefully which should be very soon).
