Columbus

The architecture on display in Columbus, Indiana is beautiful in this film, and I loved the little signs of how it related to the characters and their feelings in various scenes. John Cho and Haley Lu Richardson play people who meet by chance, and despite their age difference, support one another as each is dealing with changes in life. They're both so unforced and simply fantastic, and neither the script nor their performances ever gives in to clichés about the relationship they form. I also loved Rory Culkin in this, especially in the scene where he's talking about attention spans and video games. It's all very intelligent and the shot compositions are routinely gorgeous, with director Kogonada making use of symmetry, blurred light, and mirrors to great effect. It is a bit on the ponderous side and thus may not be for everyone, but I really enjoyed it.

Much like the city that bears the film's name, Columbus is a rare unspoiled gem in a sea of same-old, same-old. It's a spellbinding whisper; a soulful, sweet and self-assured voice that you can only hear if you can calm your mind for long enough. The film takes something as simple as two strangers getting to know each other and elevates it to an art with unspoken spiritual dimensions. Every frame truly is a painting here. The colors on the palette – our actors and the man made wonders that occupy the space.

The film begins with the collapse of an elderly Korean scholar who was in town to give a talk on modernist architecture. He slips into a coma, anticipating the arrival of his son Jin (Cho). Jin in turn is forced to put his life in Seoul on hold as he waits for either the death or recovery of his estranged father. While this is happening, Casey (Richardson) a bright, kindhearted towny and unabashed lover of architecture approaches Jin while out for an afternoon stroll. The two kindle a friendship that subtly shifts their perspectives; a bond that is as deeply felt as it is melancholy.

No words can truly describe freshman writer-director Kogonada vision in this film. Dreamy, contemplative, ethereal – all worthy words in any context but in film they come not as adjectives but unfortunate value statements. We as a culture have silently, perhaps subconsciously ascribed these words to mean languid and boring, refusing to acknowledge any portents of purposeful design. I myself have fallen into this trap plenty of times. I've watched a grand total of three Yasujiro Ozu films over the course of my life, and all three times I have been left wanting.

Kogonada is certainly mimicking aspects of Ozu here, including a deeply wistful tone and using water as a leitmotif. But Kogonada's approach does have some stark differences. For one, large generational shifts in understanding are treated in an overall positive light. Casey's astute work friend Gabriel (Culkin) expounds with increasing clarity the idea that different interests and habits don't necessarily mean we lose sight of what's important. As the film meanders through its story, the camera holds lovingly on Indiana's strange architectural wonderland as if to say the wise and the eternal can coexist with the new and the modern. In its own unassuming way, Columbus almost acts like a critique of a critique.

Most of the time however, Columbus is a beautifully captured human story pure and simple. The odd coupling of John Cho and Haley Lu Richardson is reminiscent of Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray in Lost in Translation (2003) only both are objectively less world-weary. As an actress of incredible, disarming vulnerability, Richardson fills every room, field and parking lot like a beam of sunlight. She's always had warmth to her popular performances but with Columbus she proves that she's much more than a pretty face. John Cho likewise is tremendous as the prickly and wounded Jin. The script requires that the narrative chips away at his tough exterior slowly. Thus all the guilt, anger and regret he wells up inside needs to stay just exposed enough to hold the audience interest. It's a harder thing to do than it looks but thankfully Cho pulls it off with aplomb.

If Columbus has any fatal flaws it strictly has to do with scale. The film dwells on the inscrutability of life and the beauty of the world if one only looks, but then folds all these ideas in a movie tacitly about daddy issues and life no longer being a tutorial. Additionally it can be argued that if this is a movie about looking, watching and appreciating, than why are we following two people who use looking, watching and appreciating architecture as a cudgel?

Personally when I watched Columbus I was struck by its serenity. It reminded me of a Lao Tzu poem I once read that more or less goes like this:

The supreme good is like water, Which nourishes all things without trying to. It is content with the low places that people disdain. This it is like the Tao. In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family, be completely present. When you are content to be simply yourself And don't compare or compete, Everybody will respect you.

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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I really enjoyed this movie, even though it was easily the slowest paced movie I have ever seen. I'm not sure why this worked. It was almost as if the movie gave the viewer time to think about the characters because there were so many pauses in dialog. There was a mysterious "real life" experience to watching the movie, unlike any I had ever had before, and I found myself thinking about the characters for days afterwards in the way I might think about a puzzling friend. "Columbus" should have been boring, but it wasn't.

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.