Today, let's talk about the movie "Minari".
The title of the film is Minari / 미나리 (2020), also known as Dream Land (Taiwan) / Water Celery.
The film was inspired by director and screenwriter Lee Isaac Chung. Lee Isaac Jung was born in the United States, but has Korean ancestry visible to the naked eye. He lived briefly in Atlanta when he was young, and later moved with his family to a small farm in Arkansas, where he grew up.
"Minari" is largely a depiction of the director's personal experience, and in this way tells a story of Koreans' pursuit of the "American Dream" in the 1980s.
The story of "Minari" takes place in the United States in the 1980s.
Jacob Yi immigrated to the United States with his family, believing that his American dream could be realized here.
"We came to the United States to save each other." Jacob Yi brought his wife Monica, eldest daughter Anne and youngest son David, and their family migrated to a remote and unfamiliar place Arkansas.
Originally Jacob Yi worked on the West Coast, sorting the sex of chicks. But he was unwilling to stare at the chicken butt all his life for a living, so he came to Arkansas, hoping to make a breakthrough in a new place.
Jacob Yi bought an old RV. He mainly liked the 50 acres of land around the RV. He wanted to transform this land into his own farm. By growing Korean fruits and vegetables and selling them to big supermarkets, he realized own life goals.
Jacob Yi's son also suffers from congenital heart disease, and medical treatment has also become a difficulty when he is far away from the big city. In order to be able to have someone to take care of the children, Jacob Yi's mother-in-law, Junko's grandmother, also came to help them look after the children.
Entrepreneurship is not a success based on imagination, rushing into a new field, waiting for him with a high probability will not be a good result.
In the process of Jacob Yi's struggle, surprises and surprises always come unexpectedly, and many times things are not decided by people's wishes.
Minari is a Korean word meaning "water celery".
Cress likes a cool location, is not resistant to heat and drought, and can be made into a variety of dishes. It grows very well as long as it is planted near water.
Just like Junko in the film chooses to plant by the creek, as long as you choose the right place, water celery can grow rapidly.
As the so-called poor couples grieve, sometimes hard work may not be rewarded. The direction is more important than the effort. If the direction is wrong, no matter how hard you try, you can only make mistakes again and again.
Just like the water hunter in the film, he can look for water blindfolded with a Y-shaped branch. If the direction is right, he will make money. If the direction is wrong, he will be deceived.
When Jacob Yi was determined to dream of a farm, reality would not give him much positive feedback. His wife's ideas were different, his son's physical illness, and his mother-in-law's sudden condition all persuaded him to quit one by one.
Immigrants with no skills want to take root in a foreign country, and the difficulty can be imagined.
Just like the crops in the film, if they take root in the wrong place, they will be burned by a fire, and if they choose the right place, they will continue to multiply.
Those fruits and vegetables need a lot of care, loosening the soil, fertilizing and watering, but they can't be sloppy, but they can't achieve satisfactory results.
On the other hand, water celery planted at random near the water can successfully grow into a large piece.
Isn't this much like the Jacob Yi family's experience. Things that have high hopes will always fall short, but unexpected gains can be made when unintentional.
Fortunately, no matter how difficult it was, the family did not give up. They rely on family bond tightly together, like a large piece of water celery.
Hard work and stability are not causal relationships, the key is to meet the needs of the suzerain.
Skilled workers like Jacob Yi can choose to watch the chicken buttocks, or they can choose to farm the land and serve the material needs of the suzerain; there are also many people who choose another shortcut, turning their back on their motherland and catering to the attack of the new master. The motherland, serving the spiritual needs of the suzerain.
Jacob Yi took root through farming, and hard work is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient condition. When you need it, someone will give you a meal, and when you don't need it, you can break the contract at will.
"Minari" has a delicate approach, and with its focus on minority groups, has achieved a lot in awards season.
Take a certain award that just closed a few days ago, "Minari" is 1 out of 6, which is gratifying.
Yoon Yoo Jung won the Best Supporting Actress Award for her outstanding performance in the film. The film also received five nominations for the award for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Musical Achievement.
"We came to America to save each other."
"Minari" repeatedly emphasizes this line. This is probably the sentence that moved the judges the most.
"Minari" is the second Korean-language film to be nominated for best picture at the award, after the previous "Parasite."
At the same time, it is also the first time that two directors of East Asian descent have been nominated for this award in this year's Best Director Award nomination. Compared with the work of another East Asian director, "Minari" has a much smaller format, focusing more on the inside of a small family rather than a social group.
"Minari" was shot in one go, the entire film was shot in 25 days, and all scenes involving the creek were shot in one day.
The film's leading actor is the more familiar Steven Yeun, who also became the first Asian-American and the first East Asian person to be nominated for the award for Best Actor.
An interesting thing is that most of the nominees for this year's Best Actor nominations are people of color. The winner is Welsh actor Anthony Hopkins ("Father Stuck in Time"), the remaining nominated actors are Muslim and Pakistani Riz Ahmed ("The Voice of Metal"), African American The late Chadwick Boseman ("Queen of the Blues"), British actor Gary Oldman ("Mank") and Korean-American Steven Won ("Minari").
Steven Yeon previously starred in "Burning" (2018), based on the short story "Burning the Barn" by Haruki Murakami.
The difference is that in "Burning", Steven Yeun is the one who set fire to the warehouse, and in "Minari", he is the one who tried to put out the fire in the warehouse.
Immigrant dreams sing loudly,
Water celery grows endlessly.
This is the distribution center for hardcore movie fans, welcome to pay attention to the public number: Miaokan Film and Television
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