"Post Concussion" closes the SFIAAFF

03.16 - Posted by Editor

 
"Post Concussion" closes the SFIAAFF

3.16.2000 -- by Greg Pak   The 18th annual San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival closed the year with a sold out screening of "Post Concussion," Danny Yoon's loopy semi-autobiographical comedy about a young consultant dealing with the life-changing effects of severe head trauma.   Film Review | How He Did It   Film Review With little care for continuity or consistent eyelines but enormous visual flair and boundless goofball energy, "Post Concussion" follows Matthew Kang (played by Yoon) as he loses his job, his girlfriend, and much of his ability to think coherently and walk in a straight line. As he grapples with his changed mental state, Kang meets various New Age blowhards and eventually falls for Monica (Jennifer Welch), an East German physics student.     The San Francisco audience laughed loud and long throughout the film, which features some very funny dialogue (a pretentious ex-girlfriend likes to intone, "This is true, like many things are true") and a few great visual gags (including a hilarious stop motion sequence in which Kang, wallowing in depression, snakes around his apartment on his stomach like a big worm).     With a visual verve seldom seen in first features, "Post Concussion" mixes faux educational films about brain trauma with scenes of Kang grappling with morons, hallucinating in front of the television, and stumbling into love.     But the film has its problems. Co-producer Destry Miller plays many of the film's incidental characters with a bit more enthusiasm than polish. The second half of the film drags more than the first (the recurring television show gags go on a bit too long). And the film falls a little short in plumbing certain themes -- the subplot concerning Kang's mother is a little too sketchy to bear the emotional weight it's given at the end of the film.     But "Post Concussion" stands out with its breezy pace and a quirky tone which uses the screwiest of set-ups to reveal a few moments of real emotion.     Particularly nice is a goofy love scene on the beach in which Kang and Monica share their first kisses while listening to Kennedy's "Ich Bin Ein Berliner" speech and flipping through a livestock breeders' equipment catalog. This scene shouldn't work, but it does, very sweetly.     Yoon's writing and performance deserve particular notice for their agreeable mix of misanthropy and self-deprecation.     After a meeting with a ridiculous New Age savant, Yoon's character says, "Asking these morons for help and then making fun of them wasn't going to make me better."     True enough. But it sure made the audience laugh.   Film Review | How He Did It   How He Did It "I'm really concerned about getting pigeon-holed as a personal injury type filmmaker," joked Danny Yoon during the Q&A session after the screening of "Post Concussion" at the SFIAAFF.     But Yoon didn't just make a semi-autobiographical film about a man recovering from head trauma -- he also funded the $30,000 budget in part with an insurance settlement from his own head injury.     A first time filmmaker with no formal training, Yoon not only wrote and directed his film -- he also starred and served as the cinematographer.     "Danny would turn the camera on, run in, do the scene, run out, and turn the camera off," said co-producer Destry Miller.     In the classic no-budget filmmaking tradition, Yoon and his crew made the most of every situation, wheedling their way into locations and costumes for little or no money.     "Somehow [Danny] kind of did this Tom Sawyer thing," said actor Michael Hohmeyer.     But unlike most no-budget comedies, "Post Concussion" has a certain visual expansiveness with many scenes shot outdoors in the Bay Area.     "The first script was almost all based in the apartment and someone said you can't do this; it'll be awful," said Yoon. "So we went through and took each scene and as much as possible put them outside, in a car, or on a cell phone."     Asked how he felt about the experience of making a comedy about the most traumatic experience of his life, Yoon said he often asked himself, "Am I just selling my psyche for entertainment and attention? Am I doing this and is this something I want to do? I still feel ambivalent about it."     "Everytime I hear someone laugh it's like a thousand knives in my heart," Yoon concluded. The audience sat for a moment in uncomfortable silence. Then Yoon grinned and added, "Just kidding."     Yoon is now writing his next project, which he says is less autobiographical but more personal than "Post Concussion" and deals a little more with Asian American themes.     Back to top