Columbus (Kogonada)

[dreamdead]

Kogonada, Cho, Richardson.

[number8]

This was one of my favorite movies I saw this year. I've been to Indianapolis a bunch of times and next time I go I think I'm going to insist on a road trip to Columbus.

[dreamdead]

Yeah, this is likely a top 3 film for me this year.

This is a film for those that found Linklater's Before... series rapturous. It is beautifully shot by Kogonada, employing a variety of techniques from Linklater, Ozu, and Wes Anderson in its framing. In spite of this collage of filmmakers, Kogonada makes the synthesis feel natural, as the beginning emphasizes how the shots will either be center or not-really-centered-but-still-centered, and each of these templates continues thereafter throughout the rest of the film. It's a small film in many ways, but the ideas discussed--about art, mortality, space, value, memory--resonate and made me want to linger with these characters longer.

I do agree with this criticism from Elbert Ventura of Reverse Shot:

A little too studied in its smallness, Columbus can be burdened by the mannerisms of American independent cinema. Its beats are familiar, its arc is unsurprising. The should-I-stay-or-should-I-go plots, set on parallel tracks—one with mother/daughter, the other father/son—are little more than serviceable scaffolding for the movie’s more engrossing musings on art and communion. And some unexpected moves—Kogonada plays with sound in a couple of scenes, for instance—don’t quite work, welcome though the spirit of experimentation might be.

I actually liked the two times that Kogonada cuts out the sound, letting us imagine and question Richardson's longings in these places. Further, it does a good job in making Columbus feel simultaneously beautiful and run-down, so that Richardson's home with her mom feels very much a part of the landscape, albeit one that Cho wouldn't ever frequent in and of itself. While the differences between Cho and Richardson are -- at their core -- schematic, I do think the film does a good job in navigating beyond that initial sense, and closing on Cho is a smart move in denying the movement that otherwise exists, since Richardson finally has a chance to escape from a mother who's clearly lost and flailing and trying to get her daughter to leave her behind.

And number8, Sarah and I mentioned that we need to stop in Indiana next time we visit Chicagoland, so you're not alone in feeling that the film rhapsodizes an area that you now want to be a part of, however briefly.

[number8]

When I went to see this, the theater played Kogonada' videos before the movie, which I hadn't seen before. The editing is my favorite aspect of the movie—there's a sequence that stayed with me: Casey's mom entering the shower, cuts to Jin showering, then to Casey in a towel. It's such an insignificant moment, but i loved the flow of it. I can say the same about the way most of the movie moved.

[Ivan Drago]

I got to see this with a Q&A afterwards with the director and really enjoyed it. It did take me a while to understand what he was trying to convey with his visual style (if only because it's so unique), but once it clicked with me, it never let up. Stellar score, too. Can't wait to see it again.

[Peng]

Bought the architecture, didn't buy the humans, despite how fine the performances are. Treating their parallel stories in highly schematic, always thematically signifying manner in the same way each building and location are being treated visually is a honorable gambit, but it creates too much a distancing effect for me to ever feel too invested in them, even for a low-key, non-dramatic mode. Pure composition porn is insanely soothing and inviting though, almost enough to compensate. 6.5/10