The Director Whose Movies Make Bong Joon Ho Jealous
When Bong Joon Ho won the coveted Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival for his film Parasite, one person’s vote on the jury held special meaning for him: that of the director Kelly Reichardt. A pillar of American independent cinema, Reichardt favors quiet, minimalistic storytelling, often focused on the margins of society. As she once put it, “My films are just glimpses of people passing through.” Bong has spoken frequently of his appreciation for her work; he called the opening shot of her 2008 film, Wendy and Lucy, “one of the most beautiful opening scenes in the history of the movies.”
Reichardt’s other films include Old Joy, a touching exploration of male friendship; Meek’s Cutoff, a dramatization of a journey on the Oregon Trail; and Certain Women, her phenomenal 2016 triptych about life in contemporary Montana. Her newest work is , a loose adaptation of Jonathan Raymond’s novel Set during the 1820s in what is now Oregon, the film follows Cookie Figowitz (played by John Magaro), a baker from Boston, and King Lu (Orion Lee), a Chinese immigrant, who team up to sell baked goods made with stolen milk from a local land baron’s cow. The cow, championed as the first of its kind to be brought to the region, is a funny symbol of encroaching wealth—a striking but superfluous creature that becomes the focus of the drama.
