I regret starting the trend of not just putting the actual title of the film in the title of the post. For some reason, maybe because "fantastique" is a french word that comes to mind often, I felt the need to play with the first title and I couldn't even come up with an interesting titles for the next two posts...oh well.
#7: Moon
[spolier free review]
Moon is a well-acted, sleek, thought-provoking piece of science fiction from a first-time director and first-time screenwriter.
[full review w. spoilers]
Damn. That was pretty trippy.
Are we our bodies or our memories?
Moon is a film that stays a couple steps ahead of its audience. It lures you into thinking you know what's happening and then acknowledges what you thought you'd figured out and moves on. For example, I thought the revelation of the whole movie was, "Clones!" but then, by the thirty minute mark, the Sams had figured out they were each clones and the movie was ready to explore new things.
But, more than that, Moon is a wonderful, solipsistic look at identity. When our original Sam comes to realize that he has, in fact, only been alive for three months and all of his memories, his entire life, is an illusion, something lived out by the real Sam Bell, a deep, profound sense of loss and helplessness is portrayed. It reminded me of watching The Matrix for the first time, in that you cannot help but indulge in a "what if?" scenario with yourself at the center.
What if you're just a clone of yourself, with all the memories of the original's life, but you haven't actually done any of those things?* If you're a clone of yourself, not animated until the "real" you dies, are you the real you? There is only one of you in the world, but clearly you are not the original. And, if the original isn't dead, then who are you?
* Quick aside on Back to the Future: when Marty McFly sets things back the way they're "supposed to be" so that his parents still get married and he and his siblings are still born, he does too good of a job and creates an alternate, better future for his family. Sure. Good. But, when Marty gets back to 1985 (or whatever year that was) he now exists in a timeline that he has no memory of. That is, while his family is his family in one sense, everything he has ever done with his family didn't happen to their knowledge. Won't this come up at some point? What happens when his family realizes Marty has no recollection of all their most cherished times together? Is this really a happy ending?
Without being obtuse or hitting you over the head with these questions, Moon simply tells a story based on these ideas, leaving you free to wonder about them but not spending much, or really any, time explicitly discussing the Sams' existential crises. And this is, in my opinion, one of the things that great science-fiction does. It takes a moral or ethical issue, one that may not exist in the current world, and exaggerates it to point that can only exist in science-fiction and then tells a great story based on this hypothetical issue. The Matrix, Gattaca, Blade Runner, and (to a lesser extent) Children of Men are all films that do this well.
Philosophical piquancies aside, Moon is a highly-original engaging, dark, precise film, with a strong performance by Sam Rockwell. Kevin Spacey voices GERTY the computer (an homage to 2001, but they resist the urge to make him evil, though the threat is always there) and has some good interplay as Sam's only companion. The music is excellent, minimalist and spaced-out, fitting the tone of the movie perfectly.
It's a movie that lingers in your mind, making you think about memory and the past and the few things we know to be real with certainty. Rumor has it that a sort-of-sequel is in the works, in that it won't feature Sam anymore, but will take place in the same futuristic universe. Jury's out on that one obviously, but, for now, I'll be satisfied with just knowing that Moon is an engrossing, thoughtful film that everyone should see.
"I hope life on Earth is everything you remember it to be." - GERTY
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