Columbus (15.)
Directed by Kogonada.
Starring John Cho, Haley Lu Richardson, Parker Posey, Michelle Forbes and Rory Culkin. 104 mins.
People In Places. That would be a workable alternative title for just about every film in history, but maybe none more so than the debut of Korean ex-pat Kogonada. The place is the small city in Indiana that gives the film its title, a mecca of modernist architecture. The people are a bright young girl (Richardson) just out of school and a Korean book translator (Cho) who are both tied to the place by parental obligations. Striking up a tentative friendship, they spend their time talking about themselves against locations of architectural interest. The End.
Kogonada has an impressive gift for framing an image and placing people in it to examine their relationship to, and interaction with, their landscape. Which is nice but hardly unique – Michael Mann can do that and make a gripping crime drama at the same time. For about five, ten minutes the screen seem poised with potential, and the images seem to filled with negative energy. But when it becomes clear that this is all its got, it becomes very dull, very quickly – a series of beautiful still life images, that stay that way. In theory, this is a good film. It bored me stiff and was increasingly irritating, but I liked it in principle.
Linklater and Hal Hartley seem to be clear inspirations but while performers often thrive in their deadpan static surroundings, Kogonada's touch really kills the actors. Cho and Parker are experienced performers and they can't really make an impression. Richardson comes off the worst. Because the film seems to focus on her, without making any effort to justify this attention, she exudes a kind of self-satisfaction that is all wrong for the role and she becomes particularly irksome. Maybe the film is designed as a sly criticism of modernist architecture, showing that people can't really function within it.
Directed by Kogonada.
Starring John Cho, Haley Lu Richardson, Parker Posey, Michelle Forbes and Rory Culkin. 104 mins.
People In Places. That would be a workable alternative title for just about every film in history, but maybe none more so than the debut of Korean ex-pat Kogonada. The place is the small city in Indiana that gives the film its title, a mecca of modernist architecture. The people are a bright young girl (Richardson) just out of school and a Korean book translator (Cho) who are both tied to the place by parental obligations. Striking up a tentative friendship, they spend their time talking about themselves against locations of architectural interest. The End.
Kogonada has an impressive gift for framing an image and placing people in it to examine their relationship to, and interaction with, their landscape. Which is nice but hardly unique – Michael Mann can do that and make a gripping crime drama at the same time. For about five, ten minutes the screen seem poised with potential, and the images seem to filled with negative energy. But when it becomes clear that this is all its got, it becomes very dull, very quickly – a series of beautiful still life images, that stay that way. In theory, this is a good film. It bored me stiff and was increasingly irritating, but I liked it in principle.
Linklater and Hal Hartley seem to be clear inspirations but while performers often thrive in their deadpan static surroundings, Kogonada's touch really kills the actors. Cho and Parker are experienced performers and they can't really make an impression. Richardson comes off the worst. Because the film seems to focus on her, without making any effort to justify this attention, she exudes a kind of self-satisfaction that is all wrong for the role and she becomes particularly irksome. Maybe the film is designed as a sly criticism of modernist architecture, showing that people can't really function within it.
