After Yang

Writer/director/editor Kogonada

AFTER YANG          B                                                                                                                USA  (96 mi)  2021  ‘Scope  d: Kogonada

I don’t mind if there isn’t anything in the end.             —Yang (Justin H. Min)

A somewhat confusing yet immaculately produced new work by Korean-American film essayist turned director Kogonada, which is about as far removed as possible from the lyrical naturalism of 2017 Top Ten List #5 Columbus, failing miserably at the box office, released at the height of the Covid pandemic when movie theaters were largely empty.  Based on Alexander Weinstein’s short story, Saying Goodbye to Yang, a collection of science fiction stories from his 2016 book Children of the New World, what jumpstarted the idea is something we’ve all been victim of at some point in time, that deafening moment when our computer died, taking with it years of contacts and creative output, instantly cut off from the outside world, when all suddenly goes silent.  It’s a rare feeling, as if left on an island, when life strangely appears quite different.  You might even say it feels like a death in the family.  Written about the same time that people were getting iPhones, expressing how much they loved them, becoming invested and attached to something they don’t really understand, where one gets the sense that people were all starting to forge this very deep emotional connection with technology.  Anyone who grew up watching people stare for hours at TV screens, constantly warned of the dangers this poses for children, can identify with the obsessional nature of people glued to this smaller screen that anyone can carry around in their pocket, with so many kids unable to part with their phones in school, where there is a looming question about our overreliance on technology.  Originally screening at Un Certain Regard in the Covid-delayed Cannes Festival in 2021, before screening again six months later at Sundance in January 2022, where it won the Alfred P. Sloan science award, it feels like a pandemic film, written and edited by Kogonada, shot in ‘Scope by Benjamin Loeb, appearing overly dark and somber, exploring a virtual reality existence, yet the dialogue is soft and meditative, exuding gentleness and a quiet introspection, with a seemingly joyless yet probing message of sadness that uses artificial intelligence to question human existence.  Posing big existential questions, many that were asked fifty years ago by the sci-fi android classic written by Philip K. Dick in 1968, (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), or before that in the 1942 classic I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov that forever changed the world’s perception of artificial intelligence (A.I.), the characters seem to drift through this film in a sluggish melancholy, where the overall sense of detachment can feel overly oppressive, reminiscent of a Yorgos Lanthimos film, like The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), which also featured Colin Farrell.  However there’s also a mesmerizing sense of wonderment in the spectacular use of location, the Eichler House on the outskirts of New York City (East Coast Eichler Home by Jones and Emmons), with its glass windows, where the lavish designer home set decoration by Joanne Ling and production design by Alexandra Schaller are nothing less than stunning, where the East Asian influence is evident, exuding a Zen tranquility.  It’s a strange tale taking place somewhere between 20 to 30 years in the future, with minimal clues provided, following a young mixed race, middle-class couple whose robotic “technosapian” member Yang (Justin H. Min) has suddenly gone dead, forcing the family to come to terms with an irreparable malfunction, becoming an elegiac study of loss and alienation, evolving into a meditative and melancholic inquiry into what it means to be human, looking inward, exploring memories that make life worth living, while at the same time becoming an allegory for the Asian-American experience. 

Existing somewhere in the same android universe as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2015), and Michael Almereyda’s Marjorie Prime (2017), where artificial life forms intersect with human existence, the most unique twist, however, may come from the film’s resemblance to Hirokazu Kore-eda’s After Life (Wandafuru raifu) (1998), where memories can be turned on and off by command through a visualization of cyberspace, opening up doors to a virtual reality universe.  A photography sequence leads into an enthralling, high-energy dance number playing through the opening credits that offers a glimpse of the cast, After Yang (2021) title sequence YouTube (3:37), as Kyra (black actress Jodie Turner-Smith) and Jake (Colin Farrell) are two working parents using a “cultural techno,” or refurbished android Yang to help familiarize their adopted daughter Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja) with her native Chinese culture, using him in the role of big brother, babysitter, and storehouse of cultural knowledge all in one, with hopes of connecting Mika with her heritage by providing “Chinese fun facts.”  But Yang suddenly stops working, leaving Mika emotionally devastated, as she’s actually much closer to Yang than her more distant parents.  Largely told through Jake, who is worn down and emotionally detached, seemingly going through the motions, avoiding his sense of paternal responsibility, allowing Yang to intervene in his behalf, but when Yang shuts down, he mostly seems inconvenienced, viewing this as just another problem he has to deal with, already feeling overburdened, yet when we see him working in his artisanal tea shop, there are no customers, as he’s losing business rapidly over a failure to convert to the more popular “tea crystals,” deluding himself into believing he’s always busy.  Not only does he have to figure out how to turn Yang back on, but also explain to his daughter why he is missing.  While he’s not that emotionally invested with Yang, what really stresses him out is how to carry out his new responsibilities, something he’s completely unfamiliar with, while the more scientifically rational Kyra has a sensible view, thinking they’ve been overly reliant upon Yang, hoping this may bring them closer together as a family.  No longer under warranty, repair is an expensive proposition, as the original business that sold Yang is gone, with companies instead offering to recycle him, like an older-model smartphone, discovering a Kafkaesque labyrinth of corporate disinterest where everything is disposable, so Jake turns to an underground black market repairman named Russ (Ritchie Coster), an eccentric fringe character who illegally breaks into Yang’s core, reporting he can’t be fixed, while also discovering what may be a malicious surveillance device, adding a conspiracy aspect of Big Brother paranoia, with weird elements of racism creeping in.  Out of a sense of desperation, Jake takes Yang to the Museum of Technology, where Cleo (Sarita Choudhury), the museum curator and A.I. historian, explains that what he discovered is not a surveillance mechanism, but Yang’s database of recorded memories, opening up a flood of new information that Jake accesses through virtual reality glasses, plunging into the unexplored realms of Wim Wenders’ Until the End of the World (Bis ans Ende der Welt)  (1991), which accentuates the technological visualization of dreams, where brainwaves are sculpted into a new kind of cinematic awareness, plunging into the depths of the subconsciousness, creating a kaleidoscope of intersecting forms and shapes and colors.  As Kogonada carefully weaves between the present and the past, memories in this film evoke a time-traveling aura moving back and forth in time, changing with each human host, who recalibrates them in their own unique way. 

By shifting the focus onto Yang’s memories, the film accentuates a different journey, expressed through a first person perspective, where the formalized cyberspace aesthetic is given a breathtaking presentation, largely attributed to visual effects artist Raoul Marx who works with Antibody, Yang's Memories Scene from AFTER YANG YouTube (5:19).  The imagery, combined with the memories Yang chose to keep, make these sequences more touching, unlocking certain mysteries about his past that were unknown to his family, taking us into unexpected places, like where Yang came from, which has a way of humanizing him.  Jake discovers Yang’s romantic interest with an enigmatic young woman at the center of his memories named Ada (Hayley Lu Richardson, who literally breathes life into this film), something no one even knew was even possible, adding another layer of human incomprehension, which only deepens the mystery.  Tracking her down from Yang’s memories, Jake tries to fathom who he really was, wondering whether he felt slighted by his limitations, with Ada (a human clone), already upset at his loss, adding bluntly, “That’s such a human thing to ask.  We always assume that other beings would want to be human.  What’s so great about being human?”  Yang couldn’t know what it is to be human, but he developed a meaningful sense of connection, to moments, people, places and things, which incites Jake’s philosophical search for meaning, confronting his own mortality, ultimately lifting him out of the dreariness of his own life.  At one point Mika, who has a habit of getting up in the middle of the night for a glass of water, surprises Jake watching Yang’s memories, and asks, “Are you watching a film?”  When he replies that he is, not only is Jake having a personal and epiphanic experience, but by watching the film, so are we.  There’s a discussion between Yang and Jake about why he has such a particular fascination with tea, seen through the eyes of Yang, which captures an opening into a completely different world, expressed through spoken dialogue repeating itself, but with a different delivery, offering a slightly different perspective.  One is how Jake remembers it, but the other is Yang’s objective reality, taking a single memory but elevating it into something more dramatically impactful.  As he delves deeper into Yang’s memories, where the compositions are just stunning, he discovers an entire life lived with a previous owner, and yet another one before that when he first met the original Ada, who has gone through her own transformations, as that first owner had children, grandchildren, and eventually died of old age, After Yang (2022) - Original Ada Memory - YouTube (3:27).  These are memories that Yang refused to let go of, having a significant meaning for him that was completely undetected by either owner, with suggestions that artificial intelligence may have a consciousness.  The unraveling of these memories plays out like Tarkovsky’s MIRROR (1975), where even the verdant setting along a fence near a wood looks exactly the same, as you see the prior family playfully running along a pathway, followed by the exact same setting with the people missing, where the emptiness is starkly moving, tapping into the same territory as Kieślowski’s THREE COLORS: BLUE (1993), becoming an enduring portrait of loneliness and grief.  He’s able to see not only Yang’s life through his eyes, but also his own life through Yang’s eyes, giving him more of an appreciation for his own family.  Kyra has her own experiences with Yang, After Yang - What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly (Lao Tzu) YouTube (4:21), while this also extends to Mika, who is bullied in school for not having “real” parents, so in a “grafting scene,” Yang shows her a botanical technique of combining different roots and branches to create a new plant, as Yang attempts to explain how an extended family has their own interconnectedness, much like trees and plants in nature, which helps her come to terms with being adopted.  When she responds that some limbs are held together by tape, this is a reference to Yang’s own unnatural artificiality, yet he has a unique ability to bring this family closer together.  Pondering his own place in America’s racial landscape, Kogonada brilliantly captures this diasporic condition in Yang’s duality as a Chinese A.I. in a multiracial family.  There is a piano-centered score by Japanese composer Aska Matsumiya (ASKA), supported by the legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto, while also re-introducing a song from Shunji Iwai’s ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU-CHOU (2001), which happens to be Yang and Mika’s favorite song, an endearing part of Japanese pop culture, covered by biracial Japanese-American musician Mitski, Mitski - Glide (cover) (Official Audio) - YouTube (3:41), with the song echoing their hidden interiority, with Mika speaking an untranslated Mandarin saying her final goodbye in Yang’s empty room, a nod to that final goodbye sequence in Edward Yang’s Yi Yi: A One and a Two... (2000).  

The Banshees of Inisherin

 

Writer/director Martin McDonagh

McDonagh with Brendan Gleeson

McDonagh with Colin Farrell (left) and Brendan Gleeson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN              B                                                                       Ireland  USA  Great Britain  (109 mi)  2022  d: Martin McDonagh

Banshees burrows into the stereotype of Irish people at pubs, guzzling pints to the tune of ebullient folk music, and moulds it into an emotionally resonant character study.  The starting point was to capture the sadness of a breakup, be it a love breakup or a friendship one.  Being on both sides of that is an equally horrible position.  To treat the sadness of both sides as truthfully as possible was the main thing I wanted to get right with this.                        —Writer/Director Martin McDonagh

Winner of Best Actor (Colin Farrell) and Best Screenplay when premiering at the Venice Film Festival, the film received a 15-minute standing ovation, and has received nothing but the highest accolades ever since, with many openly declaring this is the director’s best work, which may be an exaggerated overstatement.  Acclaimed Irish playwright Martin McDonagh reunites fellow Irish actors Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson for the first time since pairing together as criminal misfits in the subversively challenging dark comedy In Bruges (2008).  Many felt his follow up Seven Psychopaths (2012) got derailed by getting overly sidetracked in side stories, while Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) was a huge commercial success, earning more than ten times the cost of making the film, winning Academy Awards for Best Actress Frances McDormand and Best Supporting Actor Sam Rockwell, with McDonagh additionally writing 5 Tony Award nominated plays as well.  For the first time since Shakespeare, he managed the feat of having four different plays running in London at the same time.  Known for hilariously inventive dialogue that often covers for darker themes, this may be his most deeply despairing work, with themes of isolation and ostracization, plunging viewers into a sad tale about the end of a friendship, but it’s also a fight between men who are basically brothers, with ominous overtones on a grander scale, yet what distinguishes this film is its commitment to exploring the Irish identity and character more deeply than his other films, described in such a precise way in their dialect and way of life, filled with eccentric quirks and idiosyncrasies, set on the mythical island of Inisherin in Galway Bay off the western coast of Ireland, where in the background you can hear bombs going off on the Irish mainland, engulfed in the 1923 Irish Civil War - Irish War of Independence, with Irish nationalists fighting for a free state, a conflict that still hasn’t been resolved 100 years later.  Shooting initially began on the sparsely populated Inishmore, or Inis Mór, the largest of the Aran Islands before moving to Achill Island, the largest of the Irish isles and much closer to the mainland, establishing a community defined by its small town nosiness, where everyone knows everyone else and all their hidden secrets, as people are creatures of habit, going about their daily routines, where the women working in town need the latest gossip to spread, while those on the outskirts lead more remote lives, their thatched roof homes situated on cliffs overlooking the sea, creating a picturesque landscape in an idyllic setting, where the story plays out like a Grimm Brothers fairytale, with Carter Burwell’s accompanying musical score accentuating the heavenly tones of the celesta, Colm Takes the Reins - YouTube (2:20), suggesting this darkly allegorical Irish folklore tale is bordering on make-believe.  Yet what immediately stands out is a fractured reality, with lifelong best friend Colm (Gleeson), seemingly out of the blue, refusing to talk to Pádraic (Farrell), dispassionately informing him “I just don’t like you no more,” where the suddenness of this clean break is having a traumatic effect on Pádraic, making little sense to him, thinking there must be some explanation, as the two have routinely met at precisely 2 pm every day for a walk to the pub to share a pint, but now Colm is refusing to sit anywhere near him, avoiding him altogether, which eats at Pádraic, thinking it must have been something he said.  When Pádraic’s sister Siobhán (Kerry Condon) confronts Colm, trying to get to the bottom of what’s wrong, he simply acknowledges that he can’t stand his dullness.  “But he’s always been dull,” protests Siobhán, wondering “What’s changed?”  Apparently Colm has simply had enough of it and decided he no longer wants to share Pádraic’s company, preferring to leave his mark composing music for the violin while sharing time with his beloved border collie.       

Pádraic increasingly despairs from the arbitrariness of this decision, going through an existential malaise, while other community members attempt to get to the bottom of it as well, as this separation has island-wide repercussions, suggesting the stability of their relationship was the one good thing people could count on.  The priest (David Pearse), for example, with Colm sitting in confessional, asks why he broke up with Pádraic, with Colm inquiring if it’s a sin.  Maybe not, says the priest, but it’s certainly not very nice, kind, and compassionate either.  Colm continually has to justify himself to the other members of the community who openly resent the break in friendship, from the bartender to the postal clerk, but it doesn’t change his resolve, if anything it only reinforces it, clinging to his stubborn beliefs, with Pádraic beginning to feel offended, as he’s always been viewed as an easygoing and nice guy, not the kind to rub people the wrong way, so he’s continually befuddled by this thorough rejection, leaving him more than a little humiliated, though much of the real impact comes from what’s left unsaid, still lurking under the surface.  As if to reinforce this rebuke, McDonagh intersperses music by the great Irish tenor John McCormack, Christ Went up into the Hills Alone YouTube (2:55).  Pádraic becomes convinced Colm is depressed and needs his help, yet his clumsy interventions only make Colm resort to drastic, self-mutilating measures in order to convince him that he’s deadly serious, threatening to cut off a finger each time Pádraic speaks to him again, cutting off all contact once and for all, developing new friendships with local music students, spending his time playing the fiddle.  When a drunken Pádraic publicly confronts him in the pub, eloquently standing up for himself, then apologizing shortly afterwards for creating a scene, Colm cuts off one of his fingers and delivers it to Pádraic in a stern rebuke, which only compounds Pádraic’s abrupt isolation, seeking solace with a new drinking companion, the village idiot Dominic (Barry Keoghan), and his miniature donkey Jenny, who is welcomed inside their home, much to his sister’s distress.  Dominic is the son of the local police chief, Peadar (Gary Lydon), who sadistically abuses his own son, with suggestions it could be sexual as well, with incest a lurking suspicion, yet this is never explored, never really part of the overall storyline, but becomes part of a grander theme of fatalistic cruelty, all part of the human condition, adding a darker depth to the story, which some may find overly manipulative, particularly when Peadar slugs Pádraic in the face, knocking him senseless, thinking he is getting too close to Dominic, too close to his inner sanctum, forcing him to mind his own business, where he’s left crumpled on the ground.  In what may be the most quietly affecting scene, certainly the most devastating, Colm calmly helps Pádraic home, but they don’t say a word on their journey, with Pádraic reduced to uncontrolled outbursts of emotions.  Siobhán, a voracious reader and the only level-headed character showing any signs of integrity, is forced to navigate a path through a minefield of inflated male egos, clearly loving her brother and is even fond of Colm, but her patience has worn thin, calling the people living on the island “bitter and mental,” telling Colm, “One more silent man on Inisherin?  You’re all feckin’ boring with your piddling grievances,” leaving nothing but “bleakness and grudges and loneliness and spite.”  As the tensions worsen, the ghoulish local elder Mrs. McCormick (Sheila Flitton), dressed all in black, inhabits the spirit of the banshee in Irish folklore, frequently seen roaming the island, reminiscent of Bengt Ekerot’s embodiment of Death in Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet) (1957), warning Pádraic that death will come to the island soon, like a Macbethian curse, or a foreshadowing omen.   

First intended as a stage play, having already written plays for the two other Aran Islands off the Irish coast, The Cripple of Inishmaan and The Lieutenant of Inishmore, McDonagh quickly realized the story lends itself more to a film, with a comparable setup as In Bruges, two characters trapped in a seemingly idyllic place, written with the two actors in mind, both with proven chemistry, where one can imagine parallels in Vladimir and Estragon in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, becoming a self-inflicted No Exit parody, where the humor is much more prevalent early in the film, with dripping sarcasm turning ugly, growing more somber and darkly disturbing, escalating into a blood feud that only confirms what we already know, never actually delving into what drives such atrocious human behavior, yet adding plenty of black humor that spices up a story about guilt, forgiveness, and personal purgatory.  Beautifully shot by Ben Davis, set against a magnificent coastal landscape, much like Ryan's Daughter (1970), with interiors warmed by candlelight, the drama is intensified by the constant repetition of the story, as the characters keep making the same mistakes and keep running into walls, where even the simplest things seem unattainable, evoking moods of loneliness, regret, and pathos, as expressed by Jessye Norman from Brahms Six Songs singing Brahms: Sechs Gesänge, Op. 7 - V. Die Trauernde (Volkslied) YouTube (1:33).  Pádraic’s wounded confusion grows in tandem with Colm’s gruff intransigence, with little of substance to show for himself in his life other than an escalating sense of despair, revealing a ghastly darker side, with ambitions and dreams of completing musical compositions that will outlive him, feeling his life is slipping away, where he’s now willing to nullify his lifelong friendship with Pádraic in the name of art and posterity, revealing the artistic ego at its most monstrous and selfishly all-consuming, where the self-inflicted act of losing his fingers drastically limits his ability to play the violin, becoming a macabre metaphor of grotesque human cruelty.  McDonagh’s incessant use of humor often obscures the pain lurking under the surface, becoming less about challenging the audience and more about camouflaging the operatic theatricality of the material, as underneath it all is a mocking tone of cruel absurdity.  The grotesque nature of self-mutilation speaks for itself, even mentioned as a sin by the priest, but Colm scoffs it off with a mocking aside, becoming purely metaphoric, never actually feeling real, yet this dark and mordant humor is no laughing matter.  What are we to make of this human depravity?  Perhaps best expressed by Siobhán, who has no use for it and would rather leave the island for a library job on the mainland than stay and endure any more nonsense.  Gently rebuffing Dominic’s romantic advances, she quickly and quietly informs her brother of her imminent departure, leaving him alone with his animals, the only family he has left, mentally exhausted and slowly beaten down by what’s happened, where his pain is written all over his face, abandoned by everyone, and he can’t for the life of him figure out why that happened.  A simple man who doesn’t expect much out of life, he feels wrongly cheated out of any peaceful existence, where living out his life in harmony with his surroundings is no longer an option, having been challenged, as if to a dual, where his moral standing in the community depends upon his response.  The inability of men to live in peaceful coexistence with sometimes difficult neighbors becomes a predominate theme, with hints of ignorance, vanity, and extreme stubbornness.  All of this can be read as an admittedly cruel parable of the pointlessness of war, living on a supposed paradise island sanctuary far from the seething hatred of the raging Civil War, yet the fatal cost of masculine reserve, as well as the unrelenting persistence of petty squabbles, can easily escalate and metastasize into larger battles that rage beyond Inisherin’s shores, where the sorrowful mezzo-soprano voice of Stefanie Irányi expresses the melancholic futility of loneliness and resignation, 6 Gesänge, Op. 7: No. 3, Anklänge YouTube (1:56).  Ultimately, this may be McDonagh’s least funny film, and also his most manipulative in order to achieve the desired dramatic effect, with suggestions that indifference, not malice, may be the most contemptible offense.