After Yang
The South Korean-born Kogonada sets his second feature in the near future as a springboard to reflect on human life.
Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja and Justin H. Min
Released here rather belatedly in 2018, Columbus revealed its writer/director Kogonada as a talented and very individual filmmaker. Only now do we get After Yang the second feature from this Seoul-born American and it proves to be an even more adventurous work. As before he proves to be an uncompromising filmmaker who never plays down to his audience, but this time around I felt that the ideas touched on in this film were so wide-ranging that the purpose of the piece ultimately felt elusive. That is certainly not to say that After Yang lacks distinction: the quality of the acting is first-rate, the humane concern that underlies the film is no less apparent than in Columbus and it provides thoughtful audiences with much to ponder. In any case I suspect that some of my reservations about Kogonada’s new film stem from the fact that it brought to my mind a little-known masterpiece made by Michael Almereyda in 2017, Marjorie Prime.
In After Yang the central figure is Jake (Colin Farrell) who is married to Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith). The couple have adopted a Chinese girl as their daughter, this being Mika (played by Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja). Mika is their only child but they are living in a future age, one in which humanoids suitably programmed can be purchased readily and are popular in households in which a lone child can benefit from the presence of a caring robot treated as a second sibling. Thus it is that Mika has a companion in Yang (Justin H. Min). But very early on in the story Yang malfunctions and, although Jake owns and runs a shop selling tea, he spends most of his time here seeking ways of restoring Yang. In the process he makes discoveries about Yang through the robot’s memory box which is found inside the humanoid following an inspection in a repair shop.
I had gleaned this much information about the story before viewing Kogonada’s film and I had gathered too that, despite containing these features, this was not in any sense a standard piece of science fiction. Instead, it appeared that the family would be the central focus (apt enough since Kogonada is a declared admirer of Ozu) and that the crisis over Yang would lead the parents – and Jake in particular – to realise that they had relied on Yang too much and needed to devote themselves more closely and more fully to their young daughter. This use of futuristic elements to comment on human lives as we know them was what prompted thoughts of Marjorie Prime: that film featured not an android as such but a life-like holograph figure of a dead person acquired to recall the deceased and I described it as being a work that reflected on memory, old age and human lives in general. After Yang avoids the subject of old age but, that apart, its kinship with Marjorie Prime is strong and it extends to both pieces exhibiting a deep humane concern for their characters while avoiding any sentimentality.
Although derived from a stage play, Almereyda's film was readily accessible on its own terms but, in contrast, After Yang keeps one more at a distance. The sci-fi aspects may be secondary to the main concerns of the film, but details about the construction and nature of these humanoids - or technosapiens as they are called - do play a role, not least in the way that Jake uses the part taken from Yang to view Yang's memories visually. Kogonada adopts stylisations that rather too obviously take the eye: they include reflections that frequently overlay views of people in cars and the use of no less than three different ratios. But even more concerning is the way in which philosophical elements keep emerging, sometimes through flashbacks in which Yang talks to Mika or to Kyra but also through the memory images shown. Touching in this way on such matters as whether or not there is anything to experience beyond death, the extent to which beliefs which seem to be free thoughts may somehow be programmed and the possibility of technosapiens developing emotional needs themselves, the film is never without interest - nor does it lack touches of poetry. Yet it does seem to go off in so many directions that it lacks an adequate anchor to provide a central focus and ultimately fails to give the impression that it has reached anything that feels like a real conclusion.
But, if you are ready to settle for a film that first and foremost stimulates thought, After Yang is undoubtedly a haunting experience aided by performances that are beautifully controlled. Colin Farrell, for example, plays from the inside quite splendidly, while in a smaller role that calls for something different Haley Lu Richardson, superb as the lead in Columbus, delivers exactly what is required. Sometimes complex and mysterious in the manner of a Christopher Nolan film and arguably as cerebral as Tarkovsky’s Solaris, After Yang’s oddity makes it fitting that the credits should include one that reads "Memory Sequences by Antibody”. However, what I value most here are the poetic and humane aspects which may not match Marjorie Prime but certainly echo it.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja, Justin H. Min, Haley Lu Richardson, Sarita Choudhury, Clifton Collins Jr, Orlagh Cassidy, Ritchie Coster, Brett Dier, Ava DeMacy, Eve Lindley.
Dir Kogonada, Pro Andrew Goldman, Paul Mezey, Caroline Kaplan and Theresa Park, Screenplay Kogonada, based on the short story Saying Goodbye to Yang by Alexander Weinstein, Ph Benjamin Loeb, Pro Des Alexandra Schaller, Ed Kogonada, Music Aska Matsumiya, Costumes Arjun Bhasin.
A24/Per Capita Productions/Cinereach-Sky Cinema.
101 mins. USA. 2022. US Rel: 4 March 2022. UK Rel: 22 September 2022. Cert. PG.
