Columbus

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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Greetings again from the darkness. The first feature film from Korean writer/director/editor Kogonada provides intimate and revealing slices of life that are somehow simultaneously familiar, thought-provoking, and enlightening. There is so much going in this seemingly quiet little story that we are left thinking that it could easily have been split into 2 or 3 movies.

Haley Lu Richardson stars as Casey, a local girl who works in the library and as a tour guide. She's clearly smart, and readily admits to sacrificing her future for the responsibility of looking after her mother (Michelle Forbes) – a recovering addict to both meth and "s***heads". Her exchanges with Gabriel (Rory Culkin) carry the weight of intellects-in-development, as well as strained attraction that is regularly shut down through sneakily awkward and uncomfortable moments. Their back-and-forth on reading, video games and attention spans is one of the best on-screen exchanges we will hear this year.

The film begins with an elderly man having some type of seizure, sending him to the hospital and canceling his scheduled architecture presentation. His son Jin (John Cho) arrives from out of town and the next morning has an initial inelegant crossing of paths with Casey. The lack of connection between the two transforms in a beautifully written and photographed scene the next day. Shot from the other side of the window glass with no audible dialogue, we witness the moment Casey lets down her guard and Jin becomes enamored. It's a unique and wonderful scene – so quiet, yet it changes everything.

Columbus, Indiana is the other star of the film. Its famous modern architecture is featured prominently throughout as Casey guides Jin to her favorites. Their corresponding conversations, usually while puffing on cigarettes, gradually become more detailed and more revealing. Doorways, bridges, windows, and buildings become part of the conversation, and crucial to the look and feel created by cinematographer Elisha Christian.

Mr. Cho captures the stoic nature of a son inconvenienced by a Korean culture that requires him to be present should his father die. He is miffed by the need to 'adequately grieve' for the man who never put his own life on hold for his son. Ms. Richardson is the revelation here. Having seen her in SPLIT, THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN, and THE BRONZE, it was obvious she had screen presence, but here she shows the depth and range that portends a long and varied acting career. Her slumped shoulders and panged expression are spot on for a 19 year old who is too smart for her situation, yet too young and unworldly to know how to forge ahead.

Kogonada proves himself a sly storyteller as well as a master of visual setting, utilizing language, architecture and above all, conversation. At one point, Jin asks Casey "Are we losing interest in everyday life?" This filmmaker is doing his part to keep us aware and interested.

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.

The cinematography and music is as architectural as Columbus, Ohio. Every image is focused on and framed by the architecture present. This beautifully emphasizes the thing that brings the two leads together. While it isn't necessarily a shared interest, architecture becomes a means to discuss what ails their lives. They come to compliment each other, in their differences. They are both very real, honest, open characters. The dialog asks the big questions: Is work more important than family? Is family more important than going after your dreams? The characters play with these ideas and confide in each other's different experiences.

This movie is written, directed, and shot in the most architecturally stunning way. The performances are natural and honest. All around this is a must see. I cannot recommend it enough.