‘After Yang’ Ending Explores the Meanings
Metaphysics is often best conveyed through the medium of science fiction. Stories in which humans find other worlds, travel through time, or create sophisticated artificial intelligence are invariably haunted by the most difficult questions about the nature of existence itself. Stories about artificial intelligence in particular, especially when they concern beings that, in their actions and appearances, fully resemble people, make us question what it means to be human, and what it means to have consciousness. One such film is Kogonada’s After Yang, which explores themes of grief, loss, and humanity through the story of a family grappling with the loss of their adopted A.I. companion.
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In an unspecified future that is more technologically advanced than our own, Jake (Colin Farrell) and Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith) have raised their adopted child Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja) with an A.I. companion named Yang (Justin H. Min), who is like a sibling and educates her about her Chinese heritage. One day, Yang becomes unresponsive. Since Jake bought Yang secondhand, he has to track down the original seller, who encourages him to replace Yang with a newer model, since his body will otherwise decompose. Not wanting to hurt Mika, Jake determines to fix Yang. He takes him to an underground repairman named Russ (Ritchie Coster), who discovers a chip inside the android. Under Russ’ recommendation, Jake takes the chip to Cleo (Sarita Choudhury), a specialist at the Museum of Technology. Cleo reveals that the chip is actually Yang’s memory bank; he belonged to an older model of technosapien that could record a few seconds of the moments they deemed important. She says that there’s no hope of reviving Yang, and recommends donating him and his memories to the museum body for research purposes.
Jake goes home and watches some of these memories. Looking at the world through Yang’s eyes, Jake realizes he didn’t really know Yang — especially when he discovers clips of a young woman named Ada (Haley Lu Richardson). Jake finds memories of their family, such as those of Mika as a baby and toddler, and a conversation between Jake and Yang in which Jake explains his fascination with tea. Yang wishes he had a genuine connection with it as well, rather than just knowing as many facts as he does. The memories also include smaller moments, such as rays of sunlight, tea leaves in a glass, or a rainy afternoon. In another clip, Yang helps Mika understand that she’s still part of her family, despite being adopted. When Kyra puts on the glasses to watch the memories, she sees them discussing whether Yang’s belief in an afterlife goes against his programming.
Jack tracks down Ada, who confirms that she and Yang were in a relationship. Ada and Mika visit Yang’s body in the museum. Jake discovers a branch of memories completely unrelated to Yang’s time with them. He talks to Yang’s previous owner, Nancy (Deborah Hedwall), who says that Yang was not a new product, even for her. This additional pocket in the memory bank reveals Yang’s life before he met Jake or Nancy, in which he helped a single mother raise her child, then stayed with her when she moved into a nursing home. There, he met the mother’s niece, Ada, with whom he has a romantic relationship. She later died in a car accident. The current Ada is the clone and great-niece of the original.
When Jake tells the new Ada about Yang’s relationship with the old one, the new Ada says she wishes Yang had told her about his history with her great-aunt. They are walking side by side in what looks like a forest. “Do you?” Jake asks. When they pass another tree, only Jake emerges on the other side. Ada has disappeared. Now alone, he walks on for a few moments before saying “he found you.” There are a few ways this could be interpreted. First, that it doesn’t really matter that Yang had a relationship with Ada’s great-aunt. His connection to the first Ada is what led him to seek out the second; and in this case, what matters is not why he was looking for present day Ada, but that he found her, and that they loved each other during the short time they had together. Perhaps Jake means that both Adas are one and the same; that it doesn’t matter that Yang had a relationship with the older Ada, because she was just the younger one in another life; Yang found her again and continued their connection. In this version, their love transcends bodies and generations.
Another option is that the second “you” refers solely to the original Ada, rather than the present day one. Jake asks the present-day Ada if she really wishes she’d known about Yang and her great-aunt, indicating the fact that it’s a painful truth, and she may have been better off not knowing. The painfulness of the truth about Yang and the original Ada is that it suggests that Yang has never gotten over her; to the point where, in forming romantic relationships after her death, it could only be with her clone, who literally shares her DNA. Yang has spent his entire life since meeting her longing for the original Ada. The memories show that Yang believed in an afterlife. Perhaps Jake is musing that, now that Yang is dead, he has finally found his original Ada.
In the film’s final scene, Mika tells Jake she’s not ready to say goodbye to Yang. He tells her neither is he. As they sit on the couch together, Mika begins to sing "Glide" by Mitski. The movie ends with a freeze-frame of them together. Mika only knows Glide as “Yang’s favorite song.”
"Glide" is originally from Japanese cult film, All About Lily Chou-Chou. Earlier in the film, Yang even wears a Lily Chou-Chou shirt, and he and Ada attend a performance by the band of the same name (which was created after the movie). That feeling of raw, indistinct longing forms the center of the narrative of After Yang.
In the film Lily Chou-Chou, music is the most liberating force there is. Yang expresses to Jake during their conversation about tea that he wishes he could feel passionately; he knows so many facts about tea, yet he cannot replicate Jake’s enthusiasm for it. No matter how many snapshots of life he takes, or how curious he is, or how much he ponders his own existence, there is this seemingly insurmountable barrier between him and the humans around him: he doesn’t know how authentic his experience is. Even his Asianness is called into question; is he really Asian, or just a projection of Asianness? In a similar way, does he feel the way he does because he’s programmed to, or are his feelings his own? After all, he is programmed to be an affable, devoted companion, especially to children.
His affinity for Lily Chou-Chou, and for "Glide," specifically, are indicative of his yearning to be free from his feeling of alienation. His life is one of active desire: even if he never did feel authentically, his memories show that he was always trying to. That moment of Jake and Mika together is then paused, just like one of Yang’s memories, which is always a still image until the person viewing it commands it to play. This freeze-frame with which After Yang ends makes it seem like it’s being captured by Yang himself to form a new memory. Yang says earlier in the film “Lao Tzu once said: what the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly.” Perhaps for Yang, death really is only the beginning.
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