‘Zi’ Review: Michelle Mao Is Magnificent in Kogonada’s Transcendent Meditation on Time
Two strangers meet on the streets of Hong Kong in Kogonada’s bold, beautiful, and beguiling “Zi,” each heading up the stairs in the same direction. This encounter, seemingly one of chance, will reshape what may be a past, present and future that are all blurring together.
It’s an exhilarating experience that feels as though the classic hangout film “Before Sunset” has been joyously merged with the sensibilities of the sci-fi masterpiece “La jetée” to become something that is, in a sense, about time travel and the more existential questions that come with it. That Kogonada has, in one of his many essential video essays, reflected on the way Richard Linklater’s films grapple with the art of time proves most urgently relevant to what he is doing here. Let yourself get swept up in time along with him, and you unlock a film of rich, overwhelming emotion.
After last year’s disappointing “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey,” which he directed but didn’t write, Kogonada is able to shake free of that misfire and make a work of art that proves to be, while not big, actually bold and beautiful this time around.
But wait, back up, are the two strangers who meet on the streets of Hong Kong actually unknown to each other? One seems to have had an overpowering, out-of-body memory of seeing both of them together from afar just earlier that day. Zi (Michelle Mao) is completely sure of this, but the woman she encounters, L (Haley Lu Richardson), has no such memory of her own. Yet the latter offers to help walk the former home, showing her compassion when it seems that she has found herself increasingly alone in time. That is, until now.
As they walk along the winding paths of the city, Kogonada remains as delicately attuned to the quiet wonders of architecture and the people living in its long shadows as he was in his captivating debut feature “Columbus.” However, he also feels more unbound from narrative convention than ever before, rejecting more fully what he has called the “tyranny of narrative” in another past video essay. It makes “Zi” not just a return to form, but a shattering of our expectations for what the filmmaker is capable of.
Refreshingly uninterested in explaining the exact reasons why everything is happening, Kogonada immerses us in feelings of both quiet sadness and enduring joy as we follow these two souls through the city. It’s less about making things legible than it is about leaping into the feeling of being adrift.
Their destination is constantly shifting, going from the home of a close friend (Jin Ha) to elsewhere all throughout the city when said friend joins this evocative and ephemeral expedition through time and space. Playing out over 24 hours and also a lifetime simultaneously, the film holds us closely despite all that is slipping away for Zi.
Though the film could initially seem more formally loose than some of Kogonada’s past work, with the camera handheld and free-flowing as the characters are, it also finds plenty of marvelously framed little shots when you least expect it. As shot by his frequent collaborator, the cinematographer Benjamin Loeb, and cut together by Kogonada himself, “Zi” blurs the lines between tone poem and hangout movie, letting both merge together to become something unexpectedly moving. Without spelling things out too much, we soon learn the visions Zi is experiencing may reach a point that there is nothing holding her in place. She may herself slip away into time forever, left without any future to speak of.
But for this one night, she’s able to live. This living consists of much earnest singing, unexpected fireworks, delicious food, new friends and more. Though this could seem inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, it becomes something precious when it’s all at risk of vanishing.
Giving this emotional shape and form is Mao, who crafts what ought to be a breakout performance for the ages. Alongside the always great Richardson, she is able to find shattering yet subtle notes of sadness just as she does bittersweet jubilation. As she expresses in a melancholic and moving monologue near the end, she’s always felt untethered from the world around her.
What is left unsaid at the end of this, but is felt deeply throughout the film, is that she now feels more connected to it than ever. When time then completely folds in on itself, and we see the full picture of what we’d only gotten in flashes, Kogonada proves one final time that this exciting act of formal exploration with only a microbudget to work with found what may be his richest emotions yet.
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