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jlee-14406
Reviews
The Queen of My Dreams (2023)
Technicolor dancing and romance!
This movie was so wonderful to watch! I loved the bright colors. I loved the dancing. I loved the love story. I have a soft spot for immigrant stories.
I saw the movie at the Milwaukee Film Festival. It was a spotlight presentation. We got to hear Director Fawzia Mirza and her partner/producer answer questions about the film. I could see how much heart they put into the film.
The heroine was so unabashedly herself. She often clashed with her mother. She loved her dad so much. I enjoyed that we went back into the past to come back to the present. The film was an awesome rollercoaster ride. If you get a chance, please see this film.
Ashima (2023)
We are all climbers
The movie is about Ashima's amazing ability to climb. But I was interested in the father-daughter relationship. Many Asian Americans like myself will relate to how strict the father is. When I was a kid, I was so angry at my dad for being a hardass. I can see Ashima has elder parents. She's 13 in the doc. As a parent myself, I understand the father's strictness because he might feel he only has so much time to prepare Ashima for adulthood. That's why he's so hard on her. There are other reasons he pushes her to work hard, but I'm not going to get into them. I don't want to be authoritarian like my father or Ashima's father. How do I break my generational trauma? Anyway, those are the issues I thought about after watching the film. I'm glad I caught a morning screening at the Milwaukee Film Festival. Film editor Samuel J. Rong offered insight about the movie. That was super cool. To watch Ashima climb was an absolute joy.- Jenny Lee.