The premise of After Yang might require a mild digestif. A work of speculative science fiction from the video-essayist-turned-director kogonada, it concerns the inner workings of an unconventional family: adoptive father Jake (played by Colin Farrel), the proprietor of an artisanal tea shop; his wife Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith), busy and detached; their daughter Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja), an adopted child from China; and Yang, the android they purchased to be her ersatz older brother. Near the film’s start Yang breaks down and, with Mika distraught, Jake must find a way to get him back online. On his travels he discovers that Yang’s hardware has been custom fitted to record and save a few seconds of video each day, a moment that the A.I. finds most valuable; or, in other words, to find evidence of an inner emotional life. Phew.
It is the second feature to be released by kogonada, a South Korean-born, American-based filmmaker who took to making features with consummate ease with his 2017 debut Columbus. A love story in hushed tones, it used the clean lines of that city’s famed architecture as a profound backdrop to the complicities of his characters’ desires—an allegory as neat as Saarinen’s spire. After Yang swings for a similar calm catharsis but fails to make contact. Though ambitious in reach, its tone is one-note, stilted, and saccharine sweet, its ideas as disjointed as they are ultimately unsatisfying.
- You call me beautiful at home, then you are ashamed to be seen with me in public. You are ashamed of beauty you recognize that no one else does. You are ashamed to love me!
- When I was a kid, back in Colorado, it was Smith, Parker and Jones who hurt me with their hideous names. Who called me wop and dago and greaser, and their children hurt me. Just as I hurt you. They hurt me so much, I could never become one of them. Drove me to books, drove me within myself. Drove me to run away from that town in Colorado, into your home and into your life. And sometimes, when I see their faces out here, the same faces, the same sad, hard mouths from my hometown. I’m glad they’re here fulfilling the emptiness of their lives and dying in the sun. And they hate me, and my father and my father’s father. But they are old and I am young and full of hope. And love for my country and my times. And Camilla, when I said “greaser” to you, it was not my heart that spoke, but the quivering of an old wound. And I am ashamed of the terrible thing I have done.
Well here it is. The minific is finally finished —> (LINK)
Last March was specially hard on me for so many reasons, but one of the hardest things that I’ve to go through was the passing of my maternal grandfather.
This is why I’ve written this fic, because now like Holt here, I know how it feels to loose someone so dear and close and having to live with the reality that we’ll never see them again.
My maternal grandfather, was the only grandfather I ever got. My paternal grandfather passed away few months after I was born. So I knever knew him.
My grandpa was the best grandpa ever, he lived till he was 85 years old, he would’ve been 86 this year. He was an squilled arquitect, he was so much fun to be around, he loved music (he sang on a choir in churches for years), he loved football, theatre, art and traveling. He adored to travel around the world and he did, several times. He was also a man of faith but he was so open to everything I and my brother and cousins had to share with him, despite he didn’t always understood technology.
He reminds me now of Max Medici, ‘cause despite being in his 80′s, he had a youthfull and open-minded spirit. Like a 20 year-old boy trapped on a 85 year-old body, lol.
But the best aspect of my grandpa is that he was present, he was there for us and he loved to learn the things we learned. He supported me in a lot of stuff and for that I’ll always be grateful. Other amazing aspect of him is that he lived happily married to my grandma till his death. The were married for 61 years!!! Can you imagine that? A 61 year-old marriege is one of the best accomplishments I’ve ever seen.
Since last year, his health due to heart problems, began to deteriorate slowly and he started to forget where he was or what was going on around him. My family and I began to prepear for the worst since that happened.
He didn’t suffer fortunately, he didn’t feel pain.
RIP Papo, te quiero y te extraño un monton!
Enjoy the fanfic!!!
I’m sorry, I didn’t see this until now! I’ll read it tonight!
I’m very sorry for your grandfather’s passing. It’s lovely that you made this in tribute to him. I’m happy to hear he had a loving family around him.
I haven’t seen The Batman yet, so I don’t know what does or doesn’t go on between Selina and Oz in the final cut. But I wish they’d kept this scene.
Oz’s expression when he says, “I’d do anything for you” is heartbreaking. Colin Farrell really captured the hope and pain in Oz’s unrequited lust/love.
