Two of my favourite scenes in After Yang involve Kyra and Jake’s memories of conversations they had with Yang. Throughout the conversations phrases are repeated and echoed with differing tones and intonations. The effect is beautiful, but I’ve long wondered what exactly Kogonada, the director, was trying to get at with this technique. Today I found a wonderful interview with him in which he shares this:
Then in the context of loss or trying to recover a memory that you might start finding as meaningful, I do think that you’re almost auditioning or feeling that scene from different spaces because you’re are trying to get to what matters to you and reshaping it. So I just knew that I would capture that through this kind of repetition and hearing lines over, but maybe a little bit differently. Two of those moments are from Jake’s memory and one is from Kyra’s memory. I think that if we had a recording of that actual conversation it would feel different than what we’re experiencing as a human memory, because suddenly there is more love or care that’s growing from both of them. That sweetens that memory. It makes it more meaningful. At the time maybe certain things weren’t absorbed, but there’s something about that process where they’re suddenly trying to attune to everything that might have been significant about it.
My wife and I have watched this film literally dozens of times. Often I’ll put it on when I’m preparing dinner to let its calming gentleness flow into my day.