Wonderful Minari

 

On Sunday I watched Minari with Doug and Johanna.  This movie would have delighted my Mom. We only went to the movie theatre a few times when I was a kid in the mid-80s (the era of Farm Aid) and it seemed to me that I watched a lot of heartbreaking farm stories. (This is my favourite).

Minari follows a young Korean family that is trying to make a life for themselves on a 50 acre farm in Arkansas.  Some aspects of the story are universal to the genre:  the perils of drought and inclement weather, the untrustworthy nature of city people, tenacity, health concerns,  the strain on marriages, and the isolation.  Other aspects are more particular:  the challenges of crossing-cultures and generations, the unique relationship between the Grandmother and the youngest child, and the unique friendship  between the Father and his strange Pentecostal neighbour.  Again, and again, the movie, eschews easy stereotypes allowing each character--even the ones that only flit on the stage briefly--their own complications.

I really loved the movie.  There were bits that especially resonated with my own history: the Sunday School bus, the intrigue of going to a friend’s house where the rules are much more lax, and just the general look and feel of a rural community in the early 80s.  

I found myself wishing that it had won more awards.  I love Frances McDormand, but Nomadland and the way its storytelling floated detached from material conditions--the loss of industrial jobs and the way that precarious employment atomizes people and destroys selves and communities--left me cold.   (It isn’t surprising that the director has a Marvel movie lined up).

 Those 80s farm movies my Mom loved were very much stories told in the shadow of Reagan. These movies fit well with stories about coal miners and mill works. Artists were trying to understand something that was being lost, perhaps the dignity of work....

Minari reminds us that work must connect us to place, to family, to weird communities and friends.  Nomadland is also a story about  resilience and work, but it makes resilience a characteristic of the individual, another way of saying rugged individualism. In this way it is the perfect parable of our neo-liberal moment.

Minari reminds us that resilience requires roots, connection, and buttresses.  We need one another to be resilient.  We need other people to be  more than passing shows on our road of life. We need other people to confuse us and complicate our lives.  We need our roots to grow twisting  together--wonderful like Minari!