Redefining the American Dream

"Minari" transcends religious and cultural differences with intimacy and human nature

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Despite all the similar and repeated elements in the stories of the immigrants' films, each one gives the viewer the character of being unique due to the commonalities of each story separately.

This is why we appreciate Minari (a Korean herb), written by Lee Isaac Chang, quoting from his personal experience as an immigrant to America from the South Korean minority.

There is a human nature behind cultural differences

And religious for each story or personal experience, that is, a viewer of this movie who does not own a farm and did not try to sell vegetables, did not live in the American milieu, and he does not speak Korean, despite all this, the characters are able to capture the hearts of the viewers, because they find them familiar in their lives, and this is what we mean by human nature.

We see the movie through the character of David (Alan Kim). A six-year-old child, David came to a small city in Arkansas from California with his older sister Ann (Noel Kate Cho) and their parents Jacob (Stephen Yoon) and Monica (Yeri Han).

Later, Grandma Sunga (Yu Jing Young) joins them, they came to this secluded place and lived in a mobile home (larger than a trailer), in the middle of a vacant lot that had not been cultivated for a while.

In the California they frequent, the family works in a poultry factory, but Jacob is ambitious.

His decision to move to a land so isolated that going to a church required an incursion into the neighboring lands, and the nearest hospital an hour away was a source of anxiety and inconvenience to Monica, who hates isolation.

Jacob pleases her by bringing her mother, Sonja from Korea.

Sonja, like all grandmothers, is tough, hates being taken care of, and uses inappropriate words when she gets angry in front of children.

The events of the story were in the early eighties, a decade that seems very familiar today, given the large number of films and series that have chosen it as a time theater for their events, but it is very far from today's world due to the presence of the Internet and smartphones.

But the situation on the farm is different, were it not for the interior shots of the house and the TV and radio format, we would have imagined that the events were in the sixties or seventies.

Instead of using technology to dig a well on the farm, Jacob relies on logic and regrets it.

Jacob employs the devout American Paul (Will Patton, the only white actor in a big role), who understands agriculture deeply, but pauses during work to praise God, pray, and sing gospel songs.

There is constant tension in the relationship between Jacob, who seeks the American dream, and Monica, who succumbs to the routine of the job in the poultry factory in order to get her salary.

We see through the movie a relationship between Grandma Sonja

And her grandson David when she shares a room.

David is upset with the smell and calls it the scent of Korea, even though he has never been to Korea.

David has a heart problem that makes him unable to perform sports activities, while Grandma is opposed and believes that exercise is important to him despite his problem.

The relationship between the grandmother and the grandson is one of the most interesting elements, which has not made much time for the movie, but the two become friends and cultivate a minary together,

The funny thing is that the granny’s crop is growing, while Jacob suffers countless problems in a clear reversal of the idea of ​​the American dream.

"Minari" does not radically change the biographical category or the immigration and immigrant films, and it is not about the racial and cultural divisions between the Korean family and Arkansas society. It is a journey of a Korean family's struggle to achieve the American dream.

Zhang rushes towards the end of "minari", does not go towards a happy ending and does not manipulate emotions. All Zhang wants the film to be like an album of memories presented through the eyes of a child, and the viewer contemplates it through the vision of the director, who is the forty-year-old child in the film.

Looking closely at the relationship between Jacob and Monica, we notice that the man is bold and looks forward to independence from the job

He insists on setting up a farm in an isolated area to grow Korean vegetables and sell them to the Korean community in California.

Jacob is so clinging to his dream that he tells Monica that he is willing to sacrifice the family's stability in order to achieve it.

Monica, in return, appears collapsed, criticizing his vision and telling him that their son may need to go to the hospital at any moment and there is no hospital nearby, she seems more comfortable with the routine of the job and more attached to civilization.

This means that she comes from a higher social class than Jacob. As the film unfolds, we wonder if Monica regretted immigrating to America in the first place, a point worth exploring.

Zhang grips his film with confidence and gets lost a little bit at the end, but there is intense realism in every moment and every dialogue in the movie.

We see David being insulted by a white boy before they become friends and the latter invites him to play with him and overnight at his house.

This is a very honest attitude that has happened to all of us at some point in our lives as children.

The funniest element in the movie is Grandma, the most recent immigrant in the family who has integrated into American popular culture more than even her grandchildren.

"Minari" is among the films nominated for the Grand Prix at the Oscars at the end of this month, and if it wins, it will be the second Korean film to win the award in a row after Parasite, who won last year.

• Zhang grips his film with confidence and gets little lost in the end, but there is intense realism in every moment.

• The film is like an album of memories presented through the eyes of a child, and the viewer contemplates it through the vision of the director, who was the child in the film.

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