“Do you believe that the end is also the beginning?” Kyra, played by Jodie Turner-Smith, asks Yang (Justin H. Min) after he unknowingly misquotes a Chinese philosopher: “What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly.”
Kogonada’s second feature, After Yang, follows a family going through the motions of mourning, acceptance, and remembrance of the past in order to start anew. Humanist themes, like time and identity, are the heart of this film, and are also explored in Kogonada’s directorial debut Columbus, which followed two individuals in search of something more in their life that’s outside of their cherished mundanity. This film’s screenplay, based on the short story “Saying Goodbye to Yang” by Alexander Weinstein, is about loss and what it means to continue to live on in a world filled with tragedy and grief. Kogonada crafts a minimalistic and contemplative sci-fi drama centered on the burden and beauty of existence in everyday life amongst inchoate loss and the melancholia that ensues — an essential film for the circumstances we currently live in.
After Yang consists of soft-spoken voices, muted color-scapes in clothing and interiors, a large indoor Hayao Miyazaki-esque tree, and comforting reassurances that one could only dream for in times of need. Memories, while intangible souvenirs, are also the core sustenance for these individuals who seem to be lost in time, whether remembered fondly or not. We are charmingly introduced to the family in an exuberant dance-off competition that includes Jake (Colin Farrell), a tea-shop owner, Kyra, his wife, their adoptive daughter Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja), and quasi-son/android Yang. Stricken with a potential incoming loss of Yang due to malfunctions, the family must contend to make a new future solely between the three of them. As tensions loom, the characters are found stuck on a fine line between reality and commemoration. Yang is a conundrum that represents the warmth and sincerity of the old and the artifice of the new. As Jake seeks to repair Yang, he discovers that not only has he failed to connect to his daughter, but his wife as well, and there is a distance he must overcome in order to make the family whole again without Yang in their lives.
After Yang is filled with cinematic references, as Kogonada is not shy to include homages of some of his beloved directors. The lush green yet futuristic car-ride sequences are something that was stripped from an Andrei Tarkovsky picture. Video calls are filmed in the similar fashion of a Yasuijro Ozu film: front-facing, speaking directly to the camera accompanied with a pillarbox (1:1.33) aspect ratio in medium shots. Oftentimes the characters are found eating their favorite comfort foods during the conversations, like ramen. Kogonada also incorporates elliptical editing to illustrate the passage of time, another Ozu staple. The temporal ellipses focus on shots of empty interiors and spaces. However, Kogonada doesn’t only play with the aspect ratio during video calls but also when recounting the family’s memories. Throughout the film, the aspect ratio seemingly changes between the reimagined memories and real life. Different versions of the memories overlap and precede each other, as if we are witnessing the characters reminisce first hand as they try to piece together the correct version, or rather, the one that they prefer and hold dear to them. Yang’s memories are shot objectively through POV recordings, mirroring a Malick-Lubzeki project, while Jake and Kyra’s recollections fluctuate and fade into one another. Never straying far from the sensibilities of Ozu and his favorite concept of mono no aware, the pathos of things and deep feelings are the essence of what drives the characters’ beings in this film.
The score composed by Aska Matsumiya and complimented by Ryuichi Sakamoto, who’s credited for the theme, delicately swells throughout the film. Sakamoto’s work is so distinct and tactile. His melodies ease and lull the audience into this beautiful, serene world that Kogonada has created. Matsumiya and Sakamoto utilize sounds of the city, bustling crowds, the stream of raindrops, and birds chirping in nature to ground us closer to the root of the film. When Mitski’s cover of Glide, from the Japanese film All About Lily Chou-Chou, comes on, it’s abrasive and sour as the memory that accompanies it.
Kogonada’s After Yang is a necessary cup of warm tea for every soul to experience. It is an endearing and ambitious film that echoes the importance of family, heritage, and the passage of time. After Yang acts as a perfect stand-in for a museum of memorabilia about the innocence and tribulations that surround grieving, loss, and acceptance. Through the passing of Yang, the family and the audience understands what it inescapably means to live life and not to solely exist in a world. After all, like Yang, we are all an ongoing record of love, loss, life, and time itself — our own universes of memories.
