Minari: The sympathetic American dream film about a Korean family

Minari (United States 2020). The drama is written by Lee Isaac Chung. Starring Steven Yeun, Yuh Jung Yeun, Will Patton, Yeri Han, and Alan S. Kim. In this largely autobiographical drama, the director Lee Isaac Chung
He reflects fondly on his childhood in a Korean-American family in rural Arkansas. The film received Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Original Score. Yeon Yue-eun won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Minari tells the story of a Korean American family that moves to rural Arkansas. The father has a typical “American dream” and dreams of opening a farm where he can grow Korean vegetables. Circumstances and changes quickly cause tension within the family. Things are not easy financially, and after a while, Monica's Korean mother, who moves to the United States to take care of the children, also joins the family.
Minari It is the Korean name for a typical East Asian herb that is easy to grow near water. In the film, young David learns about the herb through his Korean grandmother. The plant can be seen as a metaphor for migration and the proverbial roots that immigrants take to settle in a new country.

music Emil Mosseri It is melodic and usually quite subdued, and does not contain the sometimes intense emotion of its scores The Last Black Man in San Franciscobut he has a clear connection to his music before Kajillionaire. Interestingly, Mosseri wrote the music using little more than text – so some edits of shots can be edited with the music rather than the other way around.
Mosseri himself says in an interview that it took some time to find a good balance between the intimate atmosphere of a family of five and the larger context of the landscape and getting used to a new life for an immigrant family. “You don't want big, bombastic music, you want a soft, intimate atmosphere,” Mosseri says. He succeeded very well in this.

The important factor in creating the soundtrack is that real strings were used, a 40-piece orchestra from Macedonia, which is very different from the samples you work with as a composer during the composing process. It is also characteristic that he developed the sound in part by combining a Yamaha piano (also used in Kazillionaire) with an old-fashioned guitar tuned as low as possible. The combination of these sounds gives the score its unique signature.