Imagination doesn't cost a penny: Another Earth
Young star and co-writer Brit Marling teams up with ex-boyfriend director, and fellow writer Mike Cahill to create somewhat of a rare gem: an effective, low-budget sci-fi film relying on human emotions rather than dry philosophical ideas to fuel its thesis. The result is a memorable film that will leave you shaken up, and one of the finest examples of indie cinema's power to capture the most intimate, and thus most relevant aspects of life. It is also a welcome addition to the sci-fi genre, which has almost vanished from contemporary screens, except in various truncated or diluted forms. Using the multiverse theory, the film questions the perennity of human mistakes and the dynamics of atonement and forgiveness as two complementary processes.
The protagonist of Another Earth is a brilliant young woman who commits an unforgivable act of vehicular manslaughter during a minute, drunken moment of inattention. Following a party thrown to celebrate her induction at the M.I.T., Rhoda takes her car home and inadvertently crashes into a BMW driven by renowned composer John Burroughs, killing his wife and son, while leaving the poor man in a coma. She draws four years in prison for this, during which the world becomes increasingly interested in the most recent astrological find, Earth 2, a mirror copy of the blue planet hanging in the sky as a tantalizing promise of hope. On its alien surface, speculation has it that another seven billion souls are living as we do, sharing our names and backgrounds while dwelling in mirror cities. The very find of Earth 2 coincides with the night of the crash, and it is actually the spectacle thereof which has caused Rhoda to stare away from the road for an instant, thus destroying the four lives of Burroughs, his wife, his son, and herself.
Unfortunately for physics-buff Rhoda, her Cartesian mind has no interest for Earth 2 after four years in jail but as an hypothetical source of atonement. You see, if one believes that their exact double lives on the mirror planet, sharing their name, appearance, background and so forth, one is also entitled to believe that a discrepancy might arise regarding the question of life choices. After all, aren't we, parental and social influences aside, simply the sum of the choices we have made through the years? For better or for worse, haven't we defined ourselves beyond the scope of our natural traits only by being cowardly at times and courageous at other times? To Rhoda, this question is of particular relevance. After all, what would be her life if she hadn't killed? What if the other Earth hadn't distracted her during that fatal moment four years before? Where would she be today? At M.I.T.? Probably. And if so, would she be close to solving the mystery of the obsessive doppelganger? At any rate, she certainly wouldn't be cleaning for a living, which she decides to do after hard time in jail has made her a social pariah. But then again, she wouldn't have the chance to cross paths with Burroughs either, and try to find atonement in the real world, while struggling with the raw emotions necessary for one to become truly human.
Aren't we the sum of our life choices?
Curious about the fate of her victim, Rhoda Google-searches him (how contemporary!) and learns of his address. And so, she works up the courage to contact him and ask for forgiveness. But when she is finally faced with the man, and the derelict looks he harbors, she is overwhelmed and quickly decides on a subterfuge to explain her visit. Seeing how she is a professional maid, she offers the ill-organized widow a highly dubious "trial cleaning". Right after rebuking her, Burroughs eventually accepts the proposal, on account of its gratuity, opening his home, and his secrets, to Rhoda. If the reigning disorder is any indication of the man's shattered resolve, things are very far from hunky-dory. And so, the young woman sets to work, literally and metaphorically putting order back into his life. To put it another way, she tries to give him back his life in exchange of her own, which she has abandoned after joining the caste of ex-cons.
That said, her ex-con status unlocks another narrative path when she decides to enter a contest to win a trip to Earth 2 as part of a leisurely trip organized by an opportunistic transport company. The rules are simple. All she has to do is write a 500-word essay, convincing said transport company that she is an ideal candidate for the trip. Romanticizing herself a social undesirable like the whores and criminals who crossed the Atlantic toward the New World, she claims to be a perfectly expandable crew member. As the story unfolds, this and the other narrative paths established earlier will converge to form a surprisingly coherent whole, one that leaves just the right amount of unanswered questions so as to stimulate the viewer while managing not to alienate him.
The screenplay contains many "what ifs" as does the imperfect human soul, devoured by nostalgia and grief. But as these questions multiply, we realize that they all bear the same answer, an earthly answer, anchored in the tangible world we experience everyday and delineated, as all things earthly, by the spectrum of human emotions. Earth 2 can thus be understood as nothing more than a wish distracting one from the more concrete, more real aspects of life. After all, asking "what if" only amounts to wishful thinking and it never helps one solve the problems ahead of him. That said, there is only one way to go and it is forward, not backward or sideways. The only forks in the road that one should contemplate are the ones ahead. Previous ones, the choice of an occupation, the choice of a mate or the choice of driving drunk for example, have since been crystallized into static memories. And instead of dwelling on these memories, one should use the emotional content therein as a driving force and shed the hypothetical "what ifs" embodied by the multiverse theory.
After all, one has but one life to live, and this is how the two protagonists eventually make sense of human existence, helping each other in times of need to the fullest extent allowed by their flaws and character limitations. Painful memories and the desire to overcome those memories is what fuels them, allowing them to grow beyond their immediate feelings into the more noble realm of human virtues. Thus, forgiveness and atonement become more than "what ifs". They become a beautiful reality as two complementary processes involving two complementary beings whose lives are intertwined both in love and hate and whose bodies and minds are probed and felt by each other in a celebrated sense of communion, which makes Another Earth one of the most relevant, most touching films I have seen this year at Fantasia.
The intimate camera perfectly delineates the Earthly
nature of the drama at hand
Narratively, the film achieves the crucial task of infusing the sci-fi premise with palpable human drama, without which the genre is no less sterile than an action film without action. This is achieved through the issues delineated by the screenplay, as well as through the sense of immediacy brought forward by the clinging hand-held camera. Oftentimes, it transforms immediacy into urgency, such as when it frames Rhoda's pale skin in close-up as she bares her body and lies down in the snow in order to die the frigid death she thinks she deserves. Drama is multiplied tenfold by the crisp, inhospitable aspect of the snow against her fragile skin as captured by the prying eye of the lens. Then there is that love scene, or the sight of Rhoda's finger tapping on a wooden table, all little things on which the camera focuses, giving the viewer the impression that there is no space between life as they experience it everyday and life as it is captured onscreen.
And while the camera frames details in order to better flesh out the tangible reality of the narrative, so too does the screenplay uses everyday details to seamlessly integrate the sci-fi elements within said narrative. To that effect, the film contains a blabbermouth DJ, who comments mundanely about the discovery of Earth 2, as if it were no more than a traffic incident. Then, there is that wonderful scene in which a woman scientist tries to make contact with the not-so-distant planet, managing to reach another woman scientist whom she establishes as a mirror self using a common childhood memory, that of "space berries". If God is in the details, than so is the crafting of an involving sci-fi film. And while the simple use of everyday elements to anchor otherworldly concepts in a readily intelligible reality trumps the recourse to overly elaborate, extravagant devices and situations (such as futuristic space shuttles or apocalyptic disaster scenes), it also allows idea-driven efforts such as Another Earth to bypass budget limitations. That said, a mere imprint of Earth hung in the sky becomes a very powerful narrative device. Actually, it was the sight thereof which sold me to the idea of the film. I mean, here's another hospitable planet in our midst. What does it hold? The dream of any space explorer, or anybody with the slightest inkling of imagination is suddenly realized. That promise alone is enough to warrant the purchase of a ticket. As for the fact that the narrative contained within is just as subtle and involving as that promise, it is almost miraculous.
4/5 Indie cinema at its best: wits defy low production values to create a supremely engrossing sci-fi wonder.
The protagonist of Another Earth is a brilliant young woman who commits an unforgivable act of vehicular manslaughter during a minute, drunken moment of inattention. Following a party thrown to celebrate her induction at the M.I.T., Rhoda takes her car home and inadvertently crashes into a BMW driven by renowned composer John Burroughs, killing his wife and son, while leaving the poor man in a coma. She draws four years in prison for this, during which the world becomes increasingly interested in the most recent astrological find, Earth 2, a mirror copy of the blue planet hanging in the sky as a tantalizing promise of hope. On its alien surface, speculation has it that another seven billion souls are living as we do, sharing our names and backgrounds while dwelling in mirror cities. The very find of Earth 2 coincides with the night of the crash, and it is actually the spectacle thereof which has caused Rhoda to stare away from the road for an instant, thus destroying the four lives of Burroughs, his wife, his son, and herself.
Unfortunately for physics-buff Rhoda, her Cartesian mind has no interest for Earth 2 after four years in jail but as an hypothetical source of atonement. You see, if one believes that their exact double lives on the mirror planet, sharing their name, appearance, background and so forth, one is also entitled to believe that a discrepancy might arise regarding the question of life choices. After all, aren't we, parental and social influences aside, simply the sum of the choices we have made through the years? For better or for worse, haven't we defined ourselves beyond the scope of our natural traits only by being cowardly at times and courageous at other times? To Rhoda, this question is of particular relevance. After all, what would be her life if she hadn't killed? What if the other Earth hadn't distracted her during that fatal moment four years before? Where would she be today? At M.I.T.? Probably. And if so, would she be close to solving the mystery of the obsessive doppelganger? At any rate, she certainly wouldn't be cleaning for a living, which she decides to do after hard time in jail has made her a social pariah. But then again, she wouldn't have the chance to cross paths with Burroughs either, and try to find atonement in the real world, while struggling with the raw emotions necessary for one to become truly human.
Aren't we the sum of our life choices?
Curious about the fate of her victim, Rhoda Google-searches him (how contemporary!) and learns of his address. And so, she works up the courage to contact him and ask for forgiveness. But when she is finally faced with the man, and the derelict looks he harbors, she is overwhelmed and quickly decides on a subterfuge to explain her visit. Seeing how she is a professional maid, she offers the ill-organized widow a highly dubious "trial cleaning". Right after rebuking her, Burroughs eventually accepts the proposal, on account of its gratuity, opening his home, and his secrets, to Rhoda. If the reigning disorder is any indication of the man's shattered resolve, things are very far from hunky-dory. And so, the young woman sets to work, literally and metaphorically putting order back into his life. To put it another way, she tries to give him back his life in exchange of her own, which she has abandoned after joining the caste of ex-cons.
That said, her ex-con status unlocks another narrative path when she decides to enter a contest to win a trip to Earth 2 as part of a leisurely trip organized by an opportunistic transport company. The rules are simple. All she has to do is write a 500-word essay, convincing said transport company that she is an ideal candidate for the trip. Romanticizing herself a social undesirable like the whores and criminals who crossed the Atlantic toward the New World, she claims to be a perfectly expandable crew member. As the story unfolds, this and the other narrative paths established earlier will converge to form a surprisingly coherent whole, one that leaves just the right amount of unanswered questions so as to stimulate the viewer while managing not to alienate him.
The screenplay contains many "what ifs" as does the imperfect human soul, devoured by nostalgia and grief. But as these questions multiply, we realize that they all bear the same answer, an earthly answer, anchored in the tangible world we experience everyday and delineated, as all things earthly, by the spectrum of human emotions. Earth 2 can thus be understood as nothing more than a wish distracting one from the more concrete, more real aspects of life. After all, asking "what if" only amounts to wishful thinking and it never helps one solve the problems ahead of him. That said, there is only one way to go and it is forward, not backward or sideways. The only forks in the road that one should contemplate are the ones ahead. Previous ones, the choice of an occupation, the choice of a mate or the choice of driving drunk for example, have since been crystallized into static memories. And instead of dwelling on these memories, one should use the emotional content therein as a driving force and shed the hypothetical "what ifs" embodied by the multiverse theory.
After all, one has but one life to live, and this is how the two protagonists eventually make sense of human existence, helping each other in times of need to the fullest extent allowed by their flaws and character limitations. Painful memories and the desire to overcome those memories is what fuels them, allowing them to grow beyond their immediate feelings into the more noble realm of human virtues. Thus, forgiveness and atonement become more than "what ifs". They become a beautiful reality as two complementary processes involving two complementary beings whose lives are intertwined both in love and hate and whose bodies and minds are probed and felt by each other in a celebrated sense of communion, which makes Another Earth one of the most relevant, most touching films I have seen this year at Fantasia.
The intimate camera perfectly delineates the Earthly
nature of the drama at hand
Narratively, the film achieves the crucial task of infusing the sci-fi premise with palpable human drama, without which the genre is no less sterile than an action film without action. This is achieved through the issues delineated by the screenplay, as well as through the sense of immediacy brought forward by the clinging hand-held camera. Oftentimes, it transforms immediacy into urgency, such as when it frames Rhoda's pale skin in close-up as she bares her body and lies down in the snow in order to die the frigid death she thinks she deserves. Drama is multiplied tenfold by the crisp, inhospitable aspect of the snow against her fragile skin as captured by the prying eye of the lens. Then there is that love scene, or the sight of Rhoda's finger tapping on a wooden table, all little things on which the camera focuses, giving the viewer the impression that there is no space between life as they experience it everyday and life as it is captured onscreen.
And while the camera frames details in order to better flesh out the tangible reality of the narrative, so too does the screenplay uses everyday details to seamlessly integrate the sci-fi elements within said narrative. To that effect, the film contains a blabbermouth DJ, who comments mundanely about the discovery of Earth 2, as if it were no more than a traffic incident. Then, there is that wonderful scene in which a woman scientist tries to make contact with the not-so-distant planet, managing to reach another woman scientist whom she establishes as a mirror self using a common childhood memory, that of "space berries". If God is in the details, than so is the crafting of an involving sci-fi film. And while the simple use of everyday elements to anchor otherworldly concepts in a readily intelligible reality trumps the recourse to overly elaborate, extravagant devices and situations (such as futuristic space shuttles or apocalyptic disaster scenes), it also allows idea-driven efforts such as Another Earth to bypass budget limitations. That said, a mere imprint of Earth hung in the sky becomes a very powerful narrative device. Actually, it was the sight thereof which sold me to the idea of the film. I mean, here's another hospitable planet in our midst. What does it hold? The dream of any space explorer, or anybody with the slightest inkling of imagination is suddenly realized. That promise alone is enough to warrant the purchase of a ticket. As for the fact that the narrative contained within is just as subtle and involving as that promise, it is almost miraculous.
4/5 Indie cinema at its best: wits defy low production values to create a supremely engrossing sci-fi wonder.
