After Yang

Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja and Justin H, Min in After Yang

Kogonada's After Yang is an adept Sci-Fi tale of a metaphysical bent that lacks the corporeal substance to make much of an emotional impact. Yang is the AI companion to the adopted daughter of Colin Farrell and Jodie Turner-Smith. Yang malfunctions and the daughter is devastated, leading the couple, particularly Farrell's character, to reassess their priorities.

If this sounds rather dry, rest assured, it is. Even in the excellent Columbus, his previous film, Kogonada displayed a tendency towards aestheticism that threatens to drain his scenes of vitality. Despite a frantic VR dance in the opening sequence, After Yang lacks dynamics. The characters do not fart, fuck, blow their noses or eat with gusto. Jodie Turner-Smith barely has a character to inhabit. Colin Farrell mainly mopes about his family kitchen or tea shop. Everything is overly clean. Heck, the film is so devoid of profanity, narcotics, nudity or violence that I can't believe it wasn't rated G. I guess it was rated PG because mortality is an adult theme. 

Yet, despite my petty bitchery, After Yang engaged me as a meditative musing on loss and memory. Its attempt to graft a Cronenbergian hailing of the new flesh onto a domestic drama is commercially foolhardy, but impressive in its striving to expand Kogonada's artistic reach. When the characters are able to tap into Yang's memory banks, Kogonada foresees that the multiverse's recording of human experience will probably outlive humanity itself. Yang is the most human and empathic character in the film, despite his bot status. Justin H. Min offers a superb performance of single-minded delicacy. Yang can fully focus on a child's needs because he is not distracted by his own needs or the host of anxieties that humans carry with them. Kogonada suggests, as his major influence Kubrick did in 2001 and AI, that the sentient machines humans create may carry with them a spark of humanity that will outlive our inevitable demise.