Aaron's Thoughts
From the outside, it seemed like Kogonada was on the fast track to becoming a new voice in cinema. In 2017, he burst onto the indie filmmaking scene with Columbus. That success led to A24 making his second film, After Yang. Which led to him getting a crack at making a film for a major studio.
His first (and probably last) studio film was none other than the infamous A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, released by Sony last fall. To say the whole thing was a disaster would be kind. It not only flopped at the box office but was panned by critics and audiences alike.
The progression from indie film to studio film is the sort of thing most filmmakers dream of. Yet, as the budgets for his films got bigger and bigger, it is clear that Kogonada got further and further away from his indie filmmaking roots & maybe even himself.
Just a few weeks after the disastrous release of A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, Kogonada asked a few of his closest friends to fly to Hong Kong. Everyone had to pay their own way. There wasn’t a script and there certainly wasn’t any money. They didn’t even know if there would be a movie, but with an outline and creative people assembled in one place, they just wanted to see what would happen.
What ended up coming from this trip was Zi, an ethereal portrait of three wandering souls whose lives intersect over the course of one night.
When you watch the film, it is clear that the main character is a stand in for Kogonada trying to find his voice again & reconnect with the part of him that fell in love with making images.
I have no doubt that this all worked as a cathartic exercise for Koganada, but that doesn’t mean it works for a film. And I think that’s totally okay. You can see this project was solely about someone trying to work through something. Which is totally fine! Especially for a film that had no budget and involved some friends gathering together to make something together.
You can see so many moments in the film where you get flashes of the guy who made Columbus, but you also can tell that there wasn’t a script for this & they were piecing it together as they went along.
I would love more than for this to be the spark that kicks off the next phase of his career & recenters his focus once again. I also hope it reminds him that he should never make another movie without the marvelous Haley Lu Richardson.
But that doesn’t mean we can act like this is great, just because he was going through some things. There are hundreds of terrible movies made with the best of intent every single year & we hold those to the same standards that every other new release is held to. Maybe the festival release is putting more importance on this than there really should be. He probably should have just kept it for himself as a reminder of why he does what he does. Or simply released it on YouTube and said, “I was going through some stuff & channeled that into this thing.” But for it to get a major festival release sort of feels like a cash grab by Sundance.
Maybe I’ll feel differently about it all if Kogonada uses this as a spring board to go onto make 10 more films like Columbus. But for now, I’m left with two thoughts.
1. I’m happy for him that he’s finding his voice again. 2. Aside from his usual artistic flair, it isn’t a very good movie & sort of doesn’t even feel like a real one.
Both of those things can be true at the same time!
