Quickly becoming one of the greatest humanist filmmakers we have with the most superb eye for composition in cinema, South Korean director Kogonada delicately breaks your heart in the luminous and exquisitely crafted “After Yang.” If you have children (and or can acutely recall your childhood), you know that precise moment in time when your child starts to gently, curiously inquire about death—what happens to us when we die— and then begins to sadly grapple with the concept that all things die, including those we love the most. It’s a lot to grasp, and “After Yang” occupies a similar space, one of innocence, tenderness, heartache, and that reflective contemplation of life, death, and existence from a child-like perspective, but one that quickly matures to something much more profound.
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Based on the short story “Saying Goodbye to Yang” by Alexander Weinstein (from the 2016 collection, Children of the New World), “After Yang” is set in a genre that might be best described as soft futurism or quiet sci-fi. Set in the near distant future in unnamed Asia (feels like Japan), families do what families do—love, laugh, cry, and share experiences (a vibrant virtual video game dance tournament at the beginning of the movie that cleverly introduces every character we’ll meet in the film is outstanding and rivals Oscar Isaac’s disco boogie scene in the similarly thoughtful sci-fi film, “Ex Machina”).
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The major difference in technology is the advent of technosapiens— humanistic, realistic A.I. androids that live among us. In the case of this particular family, Yang (Justin H. Min) is acquired to be the older brother of Mika’s (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja), an Asian girl who was adopted by Jack (Colin Farrell) and Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith), so the sentient humanoid could teach her about her Chinese culture, language, and roots. Life is normal for the family—school, jobs, the aforementioned game contests played together—until one day, Yang begins to malfunction and switches to a dormant state. Crestfallen about her beloved Yang, little Mika can’t concentrate on school and Jack—a thoughtful, introspective boutique tea shop owner and sommelier—begins a journey of getting Yang fixed, but this task is full of unexpected and frustrating challenges that test his normally untroubled and caring resolve. (Jake puts such care and dedication into his tea craft, and there’s a warm, soothing aura to Farrell’s gentle performance.) Yang was bought refurbished, purportedly after only five days of use, but all the usual repair shops, including the manufacturer, proved to be of no help. Soon, the task of hopefully bringing Yang back to life and to the family evolves into a layered, moving existential odyssey and even a mystery kind of whodunnit about Yang’s previous life, his secret relationships, and even a window to his soul.
Coming to fame as a video essayist initially, Kogonda’s outstanding debut “Colombus,” is like a One-Perfect-Shot movie about connection and longing—each frame, each composition like that David Fincher quote about the millions of ways to shoot a scene, but really that only two are correct and one of those choices is wrong. Kogonda’s entire debut film feels like the exactly correct choice in every single scene. While this sophomore effort feels more relaxed in that regard—not every shot need to be marveled over with the best blocking and staging you’ve ever seen—the attention to detail, sensitivity, and care he puts into his filmmaking are still very evident. Kogonada was always an admirer of the clean simplicity of Yasujiro Ozu, and that’s even clearer here.
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Featuring many Asian sensibilities of stillness and minimalism, “After Yang” is marked by tranquility and zen-like qualities that are entrancing and absolutely captivating. Colin Farrell, in this regard, is outstanding, compelling you to lean in and listen attentively at all his quiet movements and soft-spoken words; it’s one of his best and most mesmerizing performances. Later on in the film, Kogonada’s “Colombus” star and collaborator Haley Lu Richardson turns up as Ada, and she is equally radiant in this delicate drama (Clifton Collins Jr., Ritchi Costers, and Sarita Choudhury co-star, and all of them are terrific, as is the rest of the main cast).
As per usual, Kogonada’s aesthetics and the ace collaborators who help craft them are top-shelf. Benjamin Loeb’s cinematography is low-lit and beautiful, Alexandra Schaller’s production design is impeccable, and the director’s own editing falls together elegantly in each scene like origami elegantly folding in on itself (some of the sci-fi-ish VFX later in the film as Jake takes a tour through digital memory banks are just ravishing).
As the “After Yang” riddle and mystery unfolds, Jack learning more about Yang’s past life and the experiences he’s taken in—ones of joy, sadness, anguish, and more— Kogonada’s film crescendos into a lovely towering work of empathy and compassion. Playing with ideas of loss, love, and grief and lingers in that moment, this wistful contemplation of how all things must end is deeply moving. Like a quieter Philip K. Dick and “Blade Runner”—Do the androids dream of electric sheep? And what wonders have they experienced?—“After Yang” is a terrific existential take on those big the human condition questions about robots, A.I., their capacity for humanity, and what it all reflects and says about our own understanding of life. Poignant and poetic, “After Yang” is a soulful and heartbreaking meditation on impermanence full of poignant wonder and riches of human grace. [A]