Five Mini Film Reviews

Cindy Liu

Jojo Rabbit
chance connections

All it took was Elsa saying, “You’re not a Nazi, Jojo, you’re a 10-year-old kid,” and suddenly I’m crying. This darkly funny, sobering film about one boy’s maniacal devotion to Hitler’s regime asks one question of its viewers: how do the people we stumble upon in life end up being exactly who we need? Leave it to two kids, one radiant Scarlett Johansson, and far too many “Heil Hitler“‘s to remind us of how powerful chance encounters can be.

(2019, dir. Taika Waititi)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire
art

Few films make me feel as grateful for (any form of) art as an expressive medium as this one does. The scenes themselves are sumptuous, mirroring Marianne’s brushstrokes attempting to capture Héloïse on canvas. In love and in art, we fixate on every detail, from the most minute---Marianne repositioning Héloïse’s hands over and over---to the all-consuming. Portrait emphasizes that understanding another through art is one of the best parts of being alive.

(2019, dir. Céline Sciamma)

Tiger Tail
the blood that runs through my veins

From a smoky dance club in Taipei, to the cruelly empty kitchen cabinets that accompany divorce, Pin-Jui recounts a kaleidoscopic version of his life’s story to his daughter. Tiger Tail asks us to consider how our ancestors shape who we are capable of becoming. “To tell you the truth, your mom and I lived much the same way [as Pin-Jui] when we first arrived in America,” my father remarked as the credits rolled.

(2020, dir. Alan Yang)

Parasite
a familiar motif in uncertainty

The dominant fifth doorbell. In this film, it could mean horror, surprise, “Jessica, only child, Illinois, Chicago,” or a deeply unsettling despair lurking around the corner. There is something strangely comforting about that ring. Even when your entire neighborhood floods, a man stabs your daughter, and Ms. Park won’t check her privilege, at least the doorbell will always sound the same.

(2019, dir. Bong Joon Ho)

The Farewell
the unsaid

Glances, touch, and platters of fruit: the silent “I love you” I learn to expect from my first-generation Chinese immigrant parents. I heard their reticence in the way Billi’s eyes beg her uncles and aunts to do something, as her grandmother coughs relentlessly on a hospital bed. In the awful wedding banquet scene, where even the bride and groom would rather be anywhere else, I hear all the love my parents can only express properly in silence.

(2019, dir. Lulu Wang)