Columbus

Columbus, like many recent indie films, draws from the realities often overlooked and almost even concealed by the overpowering push toward modernity. Kogonada elucidates the real life emotions interwoven by relationships that are unhampered by technology; optimistically demonstrating how our feelings and thoughts are so salient in face to face experience that sustaining our reticence becomes more than unreasonable. The film is minimalistic in almost every sense; whether in the subtlety and astuteness of Hammock's music, the alluring stillness of Elisha Christian's cinematography or simply the fact that it was filmed entirely in Columbus Indiana over 18 days. The portrayals of Jin & Casey by John Cho & Haley Lu Richardson are overwhelmingly distilled and encapsulate the emotions of the characters in such a way to inspire both progressive introspection & nostalgia for a seemingly boundless innocence. Though Columbus is dimly innovative, Kogonada shows an incredible attention to detail creating a powerful and cohesive film that is more than worth a watch.

Saw this at the Rotterdam film festival 2017 (website: iffr.com), where it was selected for the Hivos Tiger Competition. Relevant drama, realistic people, realistic situations, and realistic issues everyone can be forced to deal with when it happens to them. Pity that the dialogs were not always completely understandable, so I missed some nuances but certainly not the main topics at hand. Another minus point is that it took some time to establish who was who and what their relationships were. So I have to recommend everyone to read the synopsis beforehand.

The situations of the two main protagonists has many similarities that binds them together after a random encounter while taking a smoking break outside, though it takes some time before they really open up to one another and clarify their respective situations towards another (and implicitly to oneself, as a side effect). For some reason, festival visitors were only halfway impressed how their issues were portrayed, as this movie ranked at a 80th place (out of 172) with score 3.856 (out of 5).

Korean tradition states that when a parent dies, the son should be there when it happens, otherwise he cannot really mourn. So Jin is forced to wait until either his father is stable enough to bring him back to Korea, or when he fully recovers, or when he dies within the foreseeable future. The latter option is preferable, from a purely practical viewpoint, all things considered and setting all feelings aside. Anyway, Jin is here now following the "family first" tradition in his country to drop everything in case of family issues.

Similarly, Casey is in a limbo wait state because of her mother. She postpones her plans for the future more or less indefinitely, very possibly even until it is too late for starting a promising career. Her mother stays a few times in some sort of clinic, and the interaction with staff is a bit cumbersome, though not clear (to me) what exactly the problem is. It looks like staff finds excuses on behalf of her mom why she cannot answer the phone or why she cannot meet. There was one example where Jin and Casey were outside the clinic, discussing the architecture of the clinic as exemplary transparent (plenty of glass), allowing them to see one of the nurses answering the phone but apparently acting differently from what she promised to do. It is one example where the architectural tour through the city coincides with their domestic issues.

Precisely this common dilemma brings Casey and Jin together. That they meet is pure accident due to Casey taking a smoking break outside, and Jin is outside walking and thinking in himself. Jin's father is a scholar in architecture, while Casey recently finished her study in architecture, and often giving tours through the city for interested guests. Apparently, the city where it all happens, is full of original architecture, ahead of its time when it was built. Their relationship starts thus on architecture as a common ground to talk about, and it takes some time for both to open up about their real problems centering around their respective parents and how to escape from their respective wait states.

Parallel to her encounters with Jin, Casey meets many times with a colleague at the library where she works. She interacts with him while at work and during smoking breaks. Their relationship is warm and intimate but not in the sexual sense. At the same time Jin meets with his sister every now and then. These parallel interactions offer ample opportunities to clarify the situation they are in, but not on the deeply-understanding-level as Casey and Jin together do.

All in all, the dramatic developments are logically arranged in a perfect screenplay, that allows us to identify ourselves with all the protagonists, each of them relevant to the story in their own right. This movie stands out positively in the Tiger Competition, half of which was a waste of time, but this one certainly was not.

"Meth and modernism are really big here." Casey (Haley Lu Richardson)

If you need an example of a modern art film, look no further than the Columbus film of Korean director Kogonada. It's a minimalist treatment of familial interaction and non-sexual intimacy worthy of Richard Linklater in his early Sunrise franchise. Its greatest achievement is bonding architecture with humanity so that the former becomes a character itself.

As for the light tone of the opening quote, Columbus the film, in an act of humane tenderness, never makes fun of the people or the city.

Korean Jin (John Cho) meets Casey in small town Columbus, Indiana. Although it feels a bit like a clichéd cow town, contrarily it has some of the best modernist architecture in the USA just as the couple deal with modern challenges as they blend their millennial dysfunctions with the seriousness of love and death. He is visiting his comatose architect father while she is fighting with herself to stay at home and tend to addicted mother while a university offering her fulfillment for her architectural enthusiasm is trying to tear her away.

Although the two are developing love that is chaste and from afar, their conversation gradually takes on depth mirrored in the growing presence of buildings from the likes of Deborah Berke, Eero Saarinen, and James Stewart Polshek, a conjunction of the real and almost ethereal, as several of the stunningly stark, simple and transparent buildings reflect. That the director chooses to shoot a whole scene in a mirror, and others briefly is a tribute to the interest he has in appearance and reality and the importance of place.

This intensely and immaculately filmed indie is a fitting declaration of the melancholy unity between living lovers and dynamic architecture. Enjoy the view and dialogue; movie-making doesn't need to offer more.

Much like the city that bears the film's name, Columbus is a rare unspoiled gem in a sea of same-old, same-old. It's a spellbinding whisper; a soulful, sweet and self-assured voice that you can only hear if you can calm your mind for long enough. The film takes something as simple as two strangers getting to know each other and elevates it to an art with unspoken spiritual dimensions. Every frame truly is a painting here. The colors on the palette – our actors and the man made wonders that occupy the space.

The film begins with the collapse of an elderly Korean scholar who was in town to give a talk on modernist architecture. He slips into a coma, anticipating the arrival of his son Jin (Cho). Jin in turn is forced to put his life in Seoul on hold as he waits for either the death or recovery of his estranged father. While this is happening, Casey (Richardson) a bright, kindhearted towny and unabashed lover of architecture approaches Jin while out for an afternoon stroll. The two kindle a friendship that subtly shifts their perspectives; a bond that is as deeply felt as it is melancholy.

No words can truly describe freshman writer-director Kogonada vision in this film. Dreamy, contemplative, ethereal – all worthy words in any context but in film they come not as adjectives but unfortunate value statements. We as a culture have silently, perhaps subconsciously ascribed these words to mean languid and boring, refusing to acknowledge any portents of purposeful design. I myself have fallen into this trap plenty of times. I've watched a grand total of three Yasujiro Ozu films over the course of my life, and all three times I have been left wanting.

Kogonada is certainly mimicking aspects of Ozu here, including a deeply wistful tone and using water as a leitmotif. But Kogonada's approach does have some stark differences. For one, large generational shifts in understanding are treated in an overall positive light. Casey's astute work friend Gabriel (Culkin) expounds with increasing clarity the idea that different interests and habits don't necessarily mean we lose sight of what's important. As the film meanders through its story, the camera holds lovingly on Indiana's strange architectural wonderland as if to say the wise and the eternal can coexist with the new and the modern. In its own unassuming way, Columbus almost acts like a critique of a critique.

Most of the time however, Columbus is a beautifully captured human story pure and simple. The odd coupling of John Cho and Haley Lu Richardson is reminiscent of Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray in Lost in Translation (2003) only both are objectively less world-weary. As an actress of incredible, disarming vulnerability, Richardson fills every room, field and parking lot like a beam of sunlight. She's always had warmth to her popular performances but with Columbus she proves that she's much more than a pretty face. John Cho likewise is tremendous as the prickly and wounded Jin. The script requires that the narrative chips away at his tough exterior slowly. Thus all the guilt, anger and regret he wells up inside needs to stay just exposed enough to hold the audience interest. It's a harder thing to do than it looks but thankfully Cho pulls it off with aplomb.

If Columbus has any fatal flaws it strictly has to do with scale. The film dwells on the inscrutability of life and the beauty of the world if one only looks, but then folds all these ideas in a movie tacitly about daddy issues and life no longer being a tutorial. Additionally it can be argued that if this is a movie about looking, watching and appreciating, than why are we following two people who use looking, watching and appreciating architecture as a cudgel?

Personally when I watched Columbus I was struck by its serenity. It reminded me of a Lao Tzu poem I once read that more or less goes like this:

The supreme good is like water, Which nourishes all things without trying to. It is content with the low places that people disdain. This it is like the Tao. In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family, be completely present. When you are content to be simply yourself And don't compare or compete, Everybody will respect you.

The quiet indie drama "Columbus" won't win over many mainstream moviegoers, but cinema academic-turned-filmmaker Kogonada has crafted a visually immaculate feature debut that can be compared to little else.

As artistically distinctive as the film may be, the story will feel familiar: A man named Jin (John Cho) ends up in the rural town of Columbus, Indiana when his father goes into a coma and meets a young woman named Casey (Haley Lu Richardson) unable to uproot herself from this modern architecture mecca. Their collision of perspectives as they tour her favorite buildings and learn about each other's challenges and hopes makes up the reflective heart of the narrative.

Yet there's a third obvious character in this story and that's Columbus. Not its people or culture, but its structures. Kogonada makes the presence of this setting palpable in most every shot. As we follow Jin and Casey from location to location, even the ones not designed by skilled architects, we're given time to absorb their surroundings, which may make us feel something that influences our perspective on the story. As the characters take in these thoughtfully designed structures, so do we. Imagine watching a play in an art museum - that's the best way to describe the dual artistic nature of "Columbus."

The choices Kogonada and cinematographer Elisha Christian make with the camera and lighting prove to be everything in this film. The calculation, symmetry and blocking show a meticulous amount of thought, detail and planning. Every shot is its own portrait, as though the film is a 100-minute contemporary art exhibition. Some portraits will move you more than others. Plus, there's the additional layer of how that portrait influences not just the viewer's perception, but the story unfolding.

Kogonada doesn't care much for plot specifics, and to a degree that fences us off from these characters because we can only invest so deeply in their personal conflicts, but the portraits of Jin and especially Casey are extensive enough that we have plenty to observe and react to in the film. Richardson's performance stands out the most in the way she continues to wrestle with her guarded nature and self-prescribed future and begins to lose a grip on her emotional control.

Foremost, "Columbus" is a reflective viewing experience. With almost no film score, we're not meant to get enthralled by the film so much as bring our attention to it and experience it in this visual, contemplative way. It requires an appreciation for the craft of creating a frame to be sure, but it's good enough that it might make some new film appreciation "students" out of more casual indie film fans.

~Steven C

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