Sci-fi Fans: Two EXCELLENT New AI Films to Start the Year

Thanks for the link—fascinating stuff.

I consider myself a conspiracy theorist, and know that many here disagree with me on many on these topics—and we are talking a long list.....

It is very easy for discussion of any of them to digress into name calling and finger pointing as discussed in your link.

I also consider myself an expert on cigars, and hang out at the reddit cigar and cuban cigar forums.

As your link suggested, there are very predictable “hot button” issues that can get crazy in a hurry—which as your link said sound harmless.

In the cigar groups a general statement like “Cuban cigars are better than non Cuban cigars” can turn into a wild war of words with fanatics on both sides of the issue (as one example).

Scary stuff—and probably easy to manipulate for sure...

You observed that explorations of the “humanity” of AIs has been done many times and asked what makes this film different.

I just tripped over this review, which begins with precisely the same question and provides a pretty good answer:

https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2022/01/2022-sundance-film-festival-review-after-yang/

In his first two films, Kogonada has emerged as a director with a very distinctive, perhaps unique, voice. It will not be to everyone’s taste, but obviously a lot of folks find it interesting. Columbus elicited much film theory-type discussion about Kogonada’s use of mirrors, windows and reflections. He’s doing the same thing in After Yang. A fritzed out AI and the exploration of its memory bank is the narrative thread around which the film is organized, but Yang is not really the subject of the film. Yang is essentially a mirror. The film is about the family to which Yang had belonged. And Ada, the most enigmatic figure in the film, who is the gateway to much more. It’s done mostly with hints and open questions for the viewers to consider.

The question of whether Yang ever wanted to be human is asked directly. Of the characters we meet in the film, Ada probably knew Yang best, and her answer was no. But it gets a lot more complicated than that. Kogonada never lectures or forces a conclusion. He is content to whisper the question.

Sounds good, i love inventive camera work, and angles, as long as they aren’t too,outrageous and distracting. Another good technique that lends interest is reflections In puddles for say assault,scenes, or say a robbery sequence, with ripples disturb8ng the scene at just the right moment. Hitchcock was good at telling a story without actually seeing the violence outright- he used shadows very well to depict such scenes. I prefer that to,the outright Gore and graphic “shock value” scenes used in a lot of films

If you like windows, mirrors and reflections, it’s worth watching Columbus just for the cinematography. Kogonada is a reformed academic who was doing a dissertation on Ozu when he decided he wanted to make films, not just lecture and write about them. There’s an element in Columbus of someone getting his dissertation out of his system and most of the film theory stuff goes over my head, but the critics rave about it.

There’s some complicated camera work in After Yang that might interest you. There are scenes shot in real time involving characters interacting face to face. There are several conversations on ubiquitous telescreens. And there are scenes involving Yang’s memories, and these depict both Yang’s own memory and human characters’ parallel memories of the same events and conversations. These are all shot a bit differently.

I don’t speak the necessary photographic language to even begin to describe it, but there’s a lot of critical chatter about different aspect ratios. Differences in shading and image clarity are also apparent. Some of the scenes involve intricate cutting back and forth as Yang’s memory is being replayed concurrently with a human character’s memory of the same conversation, and the visual image shifts with each change in point of view. Kogonada is consistent in how he plays with the images. I’m not sharp enough photographically to follow it, but my sense is that the sharpest, clearest images are Yang’s own memories, unfiltered, because Yang’s psyche is the mystery that is being explored.

Anyhow, Kogonada made his reputation as a video essayist and has done a lot of work for the Criterion Channel. If cinematography is your thing, you might want to check him out. Here are some of his essays: http://kogonada.com/

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