LWLies 88: The Minari issue – On sale now!

When I first saw Minari at the 2020 Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val, I pret­ty much sobbed from start to fin­ish. Grant­ed the tim­ing wasn’t great: three weeks before I flew out to Utah, my Grand­ma had been diag­nosed with ter­mi­nal can­cer, and I hadn’t quite realised that watch­ing a film about the rela­tion­ship between a young boy and his mater­nal grand­moth­er might be liable to emo­tion­al­ly dev­as­tate me. By the time the house lights came up and the cast and crew appeared for the post-film Q&A, I was a red-eyed, puffy-cheeked mess, and Lee Isaac Chung’s film had secured a place in my heart.

Just over a year lat­er, plen­ty of things have changed, but Minari remains cement­ed in my heart and mind as some­thing tru­ly spe­cial. As such, we’re thrilled to present LWLies 88: The Minari issue. Being able to cham­pi­on films that have res­onat­ed with us is one of the great­est joys of work­ing in film crit­i­cism, and a lot of love and thought has gone into cre­at­ing a mag­a­zine that feels as spe­cial and inti­mate as this semi-auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal film about Lee Isaac Chung’s child­hood grow­ing up on a farm in rur­al Arkansas.

This is the fifth issue we’ve pro­duced in lock­down, and we’re still long­ing for the day when we can safe­ly return to cin­e­mas. Hope­ful­ly, that isn’t too far away, but in the mean­time, it’s a priv­i­lege to cel­e­brate films like Minari, which have so much love and life in every frame.

Set against the sun-washed back­drop of the Amer­i­can south in the 1980s, the Yi fam­i­ly relo­cate from Cal­i­for­nia to Arkansas as patri­arch David (Steven Yeun) chas­es his dream of start­ing a farm sell­ing Kore­an pro­duce. His wife Mon­i­ca (Han Ye-ri) is scep­ti­cal, while their young chil­dren Anne (Noël Kate Cho) and David (Alan S Kim) don’t quite to know what to make of the move. After they’re joined by Monica’s moth­er Soon-ja (Youn Yuh-jung) who moves from Korea to be with the fam­i­ly, things become more com­pli­cat­ed, as the chal­lenges of unfor­giv­ing farm work and inter­gen­er­a­tional liv­ing begin to manifest.

But what shines through in Minari is a sense of faith – in both one’s self and one anoth­er. This is a film about good peo­ple in dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances, and learn­ing to feel your way through a world that rarely offers us a chance for qui­et reflec­tion. We’re delight­ed to have worked with some of our favourite writ­ers and illus­tra­tors to explore Minari in detail.

You can pick up your copy from our web shop, which also sells sub­scrip­tions too. Please do check out your local inde­pen­dent retail­ers too if they’re sell­ing mag­a­zines online dur­ing lockdown.

On the Cover

We turned to Edin­burgh-based artist Amy Moss for this issue, task­ing her with cre­at­ing a por­trait of Alan S Kim as David Yi. She used water­colour pen­cils to cre­ate the cov­er illus­tra­tion and end­pa­pers for this issue, beau­ti­ful­ly real­is­ing a naïve style in keep­ing with David’s mis­chie­vous spir­it. We hope you love her work as much as we do!

As a spe­cial treat, you’ll also find some pho­to­copi­able paper aero­plane designs inside, illus­trat­ed by Apol­lo­nia, the eight-year-old daugh­ter of a long­time friend and col­lab­o­ra­tor of ours, Stéphanie Sergeant.

In this issue

A review of Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari
Kam­bole Camp­bell delves into Lee Isaac Chung’s sun-bleached cine-memoir.

Being Your­self
Han­nah Wood­head picks apart the themes of Minari with its direc­tor, Lee Isaac Chung, and two of its stars, Steven Yeun and Alan S Kim.

In Anoth­er Coun­try: An A‑Z of Dias­po­ra on Screen
Leila Latif and David Jenk­ins offer an alpha­bet­i­cal tour of immi­grant com­mu­ni­ties on film.

Flower Pow­er
Phuong Le revis­its the first US film to boast a ful­ly-Asian cast: Hen­ry Koster’s 1961 musi­cal, Flower Drum Song.

Les Enfants Ter­ri­bles
Charles Bramesco grinds his axe against the wheel of ter­ri­ble child per­for­mances in movies.

Dimen­sions of Dia­logue
Grace Bar­ber-Plen­tie and Rōgan Gra­ham explain how they ampli­fied Black voic­es around the release of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series.

Threads: The Base­ball Cap
Christi­na Newland’s reg­u­lar col­umn on clothes and film unloads the polit­i­cal weight of the base­ball cap.

Illus­tra­tion in this issue by Seung Won Chun, Cal­lie Mas­tri­an­ni, Stéphanie Sergeant, Lucia Vin­ti and Lau­rene Boglio.

In the back section

LaKei­th Stan­field
Leila Latif dis­cuss­es the com­plex­i­ties of Judas and the Black Mes­si­ah with one of the most excit­ing act­ing tal­ents around.

Kather­ine Water­ston
Ahead of the UK release of The World to Come, Adam Wood­ward speaks to its star about her research and prepa­ra­tion for Mona Fastvold’s sweep­ing peri­od romance.

Dar­ius Marder
Han­nah Wood­head chats to the writer-direc­tor behind Sound of Met­al about repli­cat­ing the expe­ri­ence of deaf­ness on screen.

Chris­t­ian Pet­zold
The Ger­man direc­tor reveals why his chil­dren were a cru­cial influ­ence on the folk­lore-inspired Undine to Sophie Monks Kaufman.

Fan­ny Liatard
The co-direc­tor of social real­ist space fan­ta­sia Gagarine explains how genre can be polit­i­cal to David Jenkins.

On Cryptofic­tion
Caitlin Quin­lan chats to the founders of a new inde­pen­dent stream­ing chan­nel show­ing life beyond the mainstream.

Illus­tra­tions by Mor­gan Grice

In review

Sha­ka King’s Judas and the Black Mes­si­ah
Azazel Jacobs’ French Exit
Eliz­a­beth Lo’s Stray
Bryan Fogel’s The Dis­si­dent
Gian­fran­co Rosi’s Not­turno
Bil­lie Piper’s Rare Beasts
Jer­ry Rothwell’s The Rea­son I Jump
Mona Fastvold’s The World to Come
Umber­to Pasolini’s Nowhere Spe­cial
Lawrence Michael Levine’s Black Bear
Mar­co Pontecorvo’s Fati­ma
Flo­ri­an Zeller’s The Father
Fran­cis Lee’s Ammonite
Chris­t­ian Petzold’s Undine
Kevin Macdonald’s The Mau­ri­tan­ian
Robin Wright’s Land
Cristi Puiu’s Malmkrog
Chris­tos Nikou’s Apples
Fan­ny Liatard and Jere­my Troulih’s Gagarine
A selec­tion of the best Home Ents Releases.

LWL88: The Minari Issue is avail­able to order online now. Order your copy and sub­scribe here.