Kogonada and After Yang | In the near and intimate future

A science fiction story transposed into a work that bears no resemblance to the science fiction films to which cinema has accustomed us? This is what Kogonada offers with After Yangan intimate drama starring Colin Farrell and Jodie Turner-Smith.

Marc-Andre Lussier
The Press

Obviously, Kogonada is a pseudonym. Preferring to highlight his works rather than his person, the American filmmaker, of Korean origin, nevertheless immediately displays his acquaintances as a cinephile by choosing a smiling nickname, which evokes the memory of Kōgo Noda, frequent screenwriter of the master’s films. Japanese Yasujirō Ozu.

Regularly uploaded by UK magazine Sight and Sound or the American company Criterion to produce video essays on filmmakers, or supplements for collectible Blu-rays and DVDs, Kogonada now offers After Yanghis second feature film for the cinema.

This film, adaptation of a science fiction novel set in the near future, written by Alexander Weinstein, relates the devotion of a father to “repair” Yang, faithful companion of his little daughter Mika, an android who suddenly stopped working.

More than a human-looking service robot, Yang is also a cultural link with the Chinese origins of this child adopted by a Western family.

“The news being very short, I really saw a possibility of making it mine, explains Kogonada during a videoconference interview with The Press. It’s a bit like a chef who makes his market by coming across ingredients that inspire him and who imagines the dish he could make using them. I was also happy to take a little known little story as a starting point, unlike what sometimes happens with adaptations of great popular novels, for which the public has already imagined the film in their heads. I really prefer to take a new one and then develop it in my own way. »

Your muffled

With a very hushed tone, always very soft, After Yang has nothing to do with the traditional futuristic film. The filmmaker, who was favorably noticed five years ago thanks to columbushis first feature film, preferred to focus on the journey of a family whose members must mend their ties, the day after an unforeseen event.

“I didn’t want a traditional sci-fi film with metallic colors, a technological arsenal, holograms and all that, specifies Kogonada. I rather made a film in which I could project myself. I like the genre, that said, and blade runner remains the ultimate masterpiece in my eyes. There, I wanted to offer something more organic, in a world that had to make peace with nature and where technology is discreet. I would love to evolve in a universe where we could use technology without it always jumping in our face! »

The tone was discussed upstream, and carried by Colin Farrell. The Irish actor had already worked on his score before winning the film set.

Also starring Jodie Turner-Smith, Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja and Justin H. Min (the android), After Yang also features a multi-ethnic American family. The filmmaker wanted to echo this important aspect of the story in the most natural way possible.

“There was a time, not so long ago, when interracial marriages were banned in the United States,” he recalls. We’ve come a long way since that time, but sometimes it feels like in some circles they want to take us back 70 years. I still believe that the world is heading in the right direction. »

Cinema in the DNA

Born in South Korea, Kogonada immigrated to the United States with his family as a young child.

“Like many immigrants, I still have to deal with questions of identity today,” he says.

If his love of cinema was declared quickly when he frequented multi-screen complexes, this passion did not really take shape until he had already reached his twenties.

“My interest grew at a time when we are wondering a lot about the meaning of life, with the existential questions that arise from it, adds the filmmaker. The films of Ozu, Edward Yang, and those of the New Wave allowed me to understand how cinema could be much more than just entertainment. »

Kogonada also discovered very late that his love of cinema was also… hereditary!

“Immigrants are so busy making a living that they usually don’t have time for these kinds of conversations with their children. This is how I learned very late that my parents had met thanks to their common love of cinema. I didn’t know anything about it until the day when, at home, while I was watching a film by Jean-Pierre Melville, probably The Samurai Where The red circle, my mother, who barely spoke English, exclaimed: “Oh! But it’s Alain Delon!” I said what ?” Never the idea that she could know the classics of French cinema had never crossed my mind. I believe that my parents’ cinephilia is inscribed in my DNA! »

After Yang will hit theaters on March 11 in its original version.