Team Building
COLUMBUS Architecture and friendship in a small-scale debut that’s a towering achievement…
I’m from the Midwest and Columbus is a small town off a highway that I’ve driven along many times,” says debut writer/director Kogonada. “Then I read an article in the New York Times saying it’s this mecca of architecture. So I went. And it was amazing…”
‘Amazing’ is a description that sits comfortably with Kogonada’s gentle, unassuming feature. Serenely shot and soulfully performed, it sees local lass Casey (Haley Lu Richardson) cross paths with Jin (John Cho), who’s flown in from Korea because his architect father is in a coma. Over the course of a few days, they walk and talk: Casey feels she should stay in Columbus to nurture the sobriety of her mum (Michelle Forbes); Jin lives in his dad’s weighty shadow.
“There are personal aspects to it,” nods Kogonada when TF says that Columbus feels autobiographical. “And not just Jin, who is the character people would identify with me because he’s the Asian male. It’s Casey, too. There was a critical moment in my life when I was trying to breathe and reflect. Art can attune you or focus you. For Casey, it’s architecture. For me, it was cinema.”
A former film critic and video essayist, Kogonada’s film respectfully bows its head to Yasujirôō Ozu, both in
its stillness and its exploration of family relationships. Far from being a formal exercise, though, it is lent warmth by the performances of Cho, who here shows a sincerity rarely hinted at in the Star Trek and Harold & Kumar movies, and Richardson, who makes for a mesmerising lead after support roles in Split and The Edge of Seventeen.
Columbus also makes quiet observations on immigrant and working-class lives. “I always ponder, ‘What is the significance of art in the face of tragedy or poverty or political upheaval? Is art just for a certain class, or just for distraction?’ These are questions asked in the film, too. I was just re-watching Paterson and although it doesn’t deal directly with politics, it is radically political. It humanises. That kind of cinema matters.”
ETA | 5 OCTOBER / COLUMBUS OPENS THIS AUTUMN.