Writer / director Kogonada is known for his precise "supercuts," oftentimes featured on Criterion Collection DVDs. He has an eye for form and structure; it's no surprise that the modernist architecture mecca of Columbus, Indiana appealed to him as a setting for his first feature film.
Shot to shot, "Columbus" is simply gorgeous (it has one of the best trailers of the year). But the same eye for composition doesn't translate into an ear for human story, and the result is a film that feels a bit like being pushed through an art gallery at someone else's pace. Yet — and yet — there's always something to glean from any experience with art, and "Columbus" is in itself something both deeply flawed and quite special.
Jin (John Cho) arrives in Columbus to visit his comatose father, a professor in town. On leave from his job and stuck in town, Jin meets Casey (Haley Lu Richardson), a young woman who wants to leave town to study architecture but can't bring herself to make the leap. Casey's mother, Maria (Michelle Forbes), is a recovering addict. Cho, Richardson and Forbes never feel one-dimensional but are nonetheless inert. And while stillness and "place out of time" is thematically appropriate, it also feels, well, a little dull.
"Columbus" isn't without an ideal audience; comparisons to Sofia Coppala's "Lost in Translation" come to mind, so if you liked that movie you'll probably find something to enjoy here. It's all cinematography, light, color and setting, with two characters finding themselves as they discover the beauty of the world around them. I had the fortune of watching "Columbus" at home thanks to a press screener; I imagine that it might play much more effectively on the big screen, in the quiet of a theater with a patient crowd.
As a Hoosier, I found it a treat to have a movie with such an eye for an oasis of unique spirit in Indiana. It is sometimes hard to be proud of what our state has to offer to the world at large. Visiting Columbus as a local is an odd experience as it stands, and "Columbus" captures the otherworldliness of that place just a few miles off I-65. There's a lot of local excitement for the movie; screenings with the director and John Cho are scheduled for the Keystone Art Theatre over Labor Day weekend, and there will be screenings in Bloomington and at single-screen theaters across Indiana as well.
In a way, we couldn't have asked for a better film to venture forth and represent some aspect of artistic redemption — imperfect, thoughtful, and (coincidentally) based on the birthplace of our most shameful son in the current public eye, Michael J. Pence. If such an Eden can be both the birth of enduring beauty and merciless cruelty and loss, well ...
I'm digressing into the political. Kogonada never does, although how a location externalizes the dichotomies of life is definitely one of his interests. "Columbus" is, fundamentally, about the spirit of the structures we build with bricks and the ones we build with tears.
Clearly by writing and contemplating "Columbus," I have started to glean new ideas, new notions and come to grips with what was ultimately a satisfying emotional journey with the film, much in the same way any artwork sits with you long after you've settled on your first impression. I want to be as clear as possible that "Columbus" is by no means for everyone. It's a particular movie of a particular mind, and not a movie for those who want to outsmart it, or a movie built to satisfy narrative desires. But if what I have described to you is to your taste — embrace it.