"columbus"

Superlative Films

COLUMBUS is many things — asymmetrical but slightly off balance, Korean American director Kogonada's debut feature is a simple, yet moving love letter to art, film, relationships, and the weight of the human condition. Jockeying between raw existentialism and coming-of-age melodrama, the former film essayist's work deftly masquerades as an interracial romance before leading us down a heartbreakingly sweet and solemn path. Kogonada, a moniker used by the film's versatile overseer, functions as chef, artist, painter, philosopher, professor, and experiential tour guide, teasing his audiences with meticulously calibrated still shots (mostly static), only moving when his lead characters meet for the first time. Our rigid constraints and world views, which are conditioned throughout the film's first 30 minutes, slowly open as he introduces us to something wildly unexpected — a connection to someone, something, anyone and anything. John Cho's Jin, a Korean expat who's moved back to Columbus, Indiana to care for his ailing father, is steeped in an isolated void, feeling little to nothing for the man on his proverbial death bed. Haley Lu Richardson's Casey by contrast is a local city native, though she secretly feels like an outsider looking in; much too smart for her hometown cohorts, librarian suitor, or former addict mother, who abandons Casey and her recovery efforts at every conceivable turn. While Casey is eager to forge a new identity, she's also helpless to leave those behind who need her the most, and it is Jin who's finally able to convince her to pack up her bags and leave town for good, espousing the words of his own neglectful predecessor.

The only Korean American within a five mile radius, Jin stands out like a sore thumb in Columbus, somber yet pointedly on edge about what he knows (or doesn't know) about his mercurial father's past, whereas Casey, brimming with hopeful naivety, resigns to a life she knows can only be as fulfilling as those around her allow it to be. After a few days inspecting the city together, Casey and Jin begin touring its Neo-futurist architectural roots, relics of the past now unappreciated by today's youth. In some ways, the experience is meant to mirror the paradoxical nature of their friendship — Casey is white, Jin is Asian. She's young, he's old. She loves the city where she grew up, and he wants to leave as quickly as possible. But in their unlikely state of limbo, it is the city's vibrant history and sumptuous art which binds them as one. Of course, not all of Kogonada's thematic intricacies are so nuanced and contemplative; he chooses to spend a great deal of time with his characters alone, without dialogue or action, living amongst their empty (and often withdrawn) spaces. Jin specifically, residing in his estranged father's mansion, is trapped in an estate he perceives to be as foreign and alien as his old man. Casey meanwhile, who has fostered a warm and slightly tenuous relationship with her ex-junkie mother, realizes the home they share together is worlds apart from what she knows or truly cares for. It is unclear what is worse, living in a place you hate, or hating the place you live.

The painstaking efforts needed to build the right kind of cinematic patience, to properly ask the audience, "how much longer can I tarry on this take before boring the hell out of everyone?" is all part of Kogonada's modus operandi — by lingering on each edifice, face, mirror, and gorgeous landscape, he immerses the audience into a sumptuous brand of minimalist and reductionist pathos. Straddling between exercises in zen buddhism and nullity — he refers to many of his video essay series as "sketches" — his relief efforts, which are in the vein of Ryan Gosling vehicles like "Drive," "Only God Forgives," "The Place Beyond the Pines" and "Blue Valentine", are master studies in suppressed character lyricism. Every line that written is somehow meant to evoke some Linklaterian debate surrounding art, how our society takes it for granted, and whether we've forgotten how to communicate our feelings to loved ones as a result. "Columbus" might feel like one very long, meandering portrait, but it is unequivocally deliberate in its storytelling — for every crack of humanity depicted is a patchwork of equally painful self-reflection.

With the tragic events of this past week in Barcelona and Charlottesville, "Columbus" feels like a welcome respite from the violence, racial divides, and ugly return to a past we once demonized as a nation. It's hard not to sympathize with the setting's urbane landscape, hollowly bereft of opportunity, as one begins to wonder how so many voters in Indiana voted for a man like Trump, or decided to join a far-right extremist movement. We aren't always given the opportunities we deserve, and the people who are able to shield us from our worst instincts aren't always the harbingers of moral clarity we need them to be. Though overall, what Kogonada conveys most forcibly in his debut feature, are not only the gorgeous walk-throughs of a forgotten mecca, but the calmness of seeing things as they are, and allowing them sink in, removing all semblance of prejudice. Casey and Jin refuse to judge one another based on the color of their skin, their gender, language, identity or disparity in age; they are both lost souls yearning to believe in something that they themselves cannot express. It's what America, and perhaps the rest of the world, needs in 2017. 

"COLUMBUS" Unrated. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes.