Columbus (2017)

Every shot in Columbus could be a postcard. Reminiscent of Capote in that sense, Columbus is rich in texture, delicately beautiful, fragile, quiet, and full of natural light. I had no clue going in what the plot of it was. None. A critic I’ve never met recommended it to me, and it reminded me how lucky I am to be in these vast social media worlds where I can experience such small tokens of discovery.

Columbus moves at a slow, unhurried pace, but a deliberate one. It’s a story about the kind of love and affection rarely portrayed so honestly and tenderly in this medium. Even more rarely do I have the experience of wanting to savor every moment and not minding when they end, but Columbus accomplished this again and again. The soundtrack plays now even as I type, and when I close my eyes, I can still see her dancing in the headlights, the fluorescent bulbs in the outside darkness, and that hat resting on his chair in a foreign but familiar place.

The two lead characters feel so authentic, it’s easy to forget they’re acting or that there’s a script at all. I imagine that the director, Mr. Kogonada, saw each scene as a blank canvas, but instead of filling it with manufactured images, he shows us real spaces and lets them speak for themselves. This is magnificent, I kept saying to myself out loud. Magnificent.

I can’t say everyone would love Columbus as I do, but what I can tell you is this — for me, by the end, it felt like a hand was holding mine. And I suspect if you let it, it’ll hold yours too.