Monday, January 23, 2012

The Orbits of Obliteration



I recently made some time to sit down and watch two films that curiously echo each other. Both utilize the plot device of another planet meeting the earth, around which the characters' lives spin in smaller and smaller circles. But where the two stories diverge is the vast space between hope and despair.




I started with Lars Von Trier's Melancholia - a somber contemplation of existence on the cusp of nothingness, revolving around the lives of two sisters (Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg) as a massive rogue planet emerges from hiding behind the sun and threatens to collide with the earth.


Von Trier's film is suffused with a lingering air of anomie. It opens with surreal, slow-motion vignettes of his main characters: a bride tethered by wizened branches rising menacingly from the ground. A mother clutching her child as her feet sink in a marshy bog. A close-up of a woman's impassive face as birds fall lifeless from the sky behind her. The movie then segues into the first of its two chapters, each named after the two sisters. Chapter 1 brings us the beautiful Justine (Dunst) arriving late at her lavish wedding reception. Weddings and their ensuing receptions are traditionally joyous occasions yet Justine seems bent on destroying hers. She stares distractedly into space while guests seem desperately determined to enjoy themselves. She disappears at key moments in the carefully-planned event, leaving everyone perplexed and embarrassed. She breaks out into crying fits then alternates with giddiness, driving her sister Claire (Gainsbourg) and brother-in-law John (Kiefer Sutherland) into angry exasperation. 


Justine's maddening behavior is made clearer in Chapter 2, which focuses on sensible sister Claire's steady descent into a mental breakdown. Claire's agitation is fueled by her dread of the strange, fearsome heavenly body bearing ever closer down on earth, while her husband John - an amateur astronomist - is giddy with excitement, and Justine, hobbled by depression, is distant and detached. 

With the exception of the terrified Claire, the characters make little mention of the incoming planet - the titular Melancholia - looming bigger and bigger in the sky, so caught up are they in the desperate minutiae of their lives. Or perhaps, the focus on seemingly trivial matters - the stubborn insistence of the main characters in steadfastly maintaining the daily, mundane pace of their earthy existence - is a defensive stance against the growing backdrop of possible annihilation from the heavens.

It makes some sense, I suppose, that the best way to defy death is to simply continue living.








The second film, Another Earth, is an independent effort (directed by first-time feature film director Mike Cahill) that won the Special Jury Prize at the 2011 Sundance film festival. Here, the filmmakers explore the questions of possibilities and variances in our lives, as a duplicate Earth - along with a duplicate you, living, perhaps, a duplicate life - appears in the skies.


The mood and tone in Another Earth is bleak and dreary, reflecting the psyche of its main character, Rhoda (played by co-producer and writer Brit Marling), as she tries to return to a normal life after serving time for killing a composer's family in a car accident. Rhoda - who had won acceptance in MIT's astrophysics program just before her life-changing accident - chooses to literally live a life of drudgery, cleaning urinals in her old high school. Perhaps she hopes that with enough bleach and scrubbing she can erase her sin. Her need for atonement leads her to a chance encounter with the composer whose family she killed, now living in squalor as a drunken recluse. She misrepresents herself as an employee of a cleaning service, and proceeds to literally and figuratively clean up the composer's life. As they inevitably grow closer - much like the twin earths - Rhoda agonizes how to reveal the role she played leading to his current existence. 


All the while, the other earth hangs tantalizingly in the sky, an enigma whose mysteries start to be revealed 3/4ths of the way through, bearing the possibility that there might be another Rhoda who didn't suffer the consequences of an unfortunate series of events - and by extension, the possibility that somewhere on that other earth, the composer is living a happier life with his family intact and alive.







Another Earth is about another chance to set things right in our lives. 


Melancholia is about diminishing chances left in them.




Which makes me ask you these questions:


If you were to meet a duplicate you living another life, do you think he would be living a life better than yours ?


And, more pressingly for this banner year, what would you do if there was a great possibility that the end of all life was coming closer and closer ?

22 comments:

  1. interesting movies.

    q1: probably not. i always believe in myself too much that i know i have done my best in everything that i do, what i've done and what i will do in the future. maybe he have a better life, but i will always have the best things that he never had. :)

    Q2: i really dont want to entertain the thought, but if it is really the end, i will just ask for our creator's mercy and forgiveness. i will also thank him for the life that he gave me

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    1. a1: Now there's an answer that might've bagged the crown for Venus Raj, instead of that major-major facepalm of a response she gave.

      Unlike Raj, I myself have plenty of regrets. However, while my double might lead a more satisfying life, he will never be the me that I am today.

      For all that's worth.

      a2: No one really wants to embrace the end of all existence, LJ, but if we're going to hell in a handbasket, I'd much prefer that everyone goes at the same time.

      All in the interest of fairness, of course.

      But those who wish to go ahead may do so at their own convenience.

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    2. hahaha... i really have to go back to your blog to check how will you react on my crappy answers. :)

      i agree, its better to go in hell with someone i know. :)

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  2. a) he has his life, i have mine. and i'm fine with thta, thank you.

    b) isn't it too late for the fin de siècle doomsday scenarios? or more accurately, fin des temps.

    not unless you've joined some creepy cult or something :P

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    1. a.) You forgot the "Hmmmph!"

      b.) Doomsday scenarios? Moi?!? Jamais!

      Also, I'm not the filmmaker weighing in on the dystopia trend, which, contrary to your opinion, mon ami, is actually quelle quelle vogue this year of all years.

      As for creepy cult, dear Ternie, I was once a fresh-faced choirboy. 'Nuff said.

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  3. (1) I subscribe to the idea of multiverses, and in the belief that what we do with our live is a result of decisions made along a long, exponential line of cause and effect. That being said, reality is divergent. So I cannot presume one being better than the other on a purely momentary assessment.

    (2) But isn't it that life comes closer and closer to it's end every waking day? I don't think it would matter if it was for myself, or for the whole of existence. Mortality has placed us on a half-life we are unaware of. And who's to say that the possibility of life being merely redefined with this apocalyptic scenario is too far fetched?

    Also, I've heard of Melancholia. And I think it's a good example of updating the French Noir genre. Of course, that's an opinion. I think I need to download this one, and see for myself. Thanks for featuring these two films.

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    1. (1) I love the idea of multiverses, but I wonder if they all run on parallel timelines, as some theories have suggested, or if they have infinite permutations. One of the theories in the movie was that the inhabitants of the two earths had been living exactly synchronous lives up until the time they learned of the existence of the other, duplicate world. From that point on, their realities started to diverge, as you indicated in your comment - the very divergence that made the main character's redemption a possibility.

      (2) Indeed, red. As I was telling someone who was terrified of the idea of an apocalypse, every waking hour, the world ends for someone else on the globe. The Apocalypse is simply the world ending for everyone at the same time.

      Even then, as you said, life itself may go on post-apocalypse - just not life the way we know it.

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  4. Thanks for recommending the films. I skipped the parts where you talked about them because I'd like to see them first and I don't enjoy spoilers. lolz

    - Just for balance, that duplicate had better be some rogue bungee jumper slash sex machine. haha but I often fantasize about a version of me that wasn't so vanilla.

    - Then you'd better take me out for that cup of coffee you promised YEARS AGOOOOOO...

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    1. - You can still be that rogue bungee jumper/sex machine on this earth, Nyl. You just need someone to turn your flavor from vanilla to rocky road ;)

      - As I love telling my staff, in my best Miranda Priestly tone: "Is there any reason my coffee isn't here ? Are we waiting until the 21st of December!"

      But your coffee, dear Nyl, is indeed long overdue. I shall have to make amends for that. Will having hot sex with you while bungee jumping be enough, or do we have to be drinking lattes while in the process? :P

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    2. Throw in a croissant and I'm so there. haha

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  5. first of all, *nosebleed*

    hahaha.. :P this is a very interesting read.. :) and to answer your questions:

    #1: in that parallel universe,

    if he isn't overshadowed by a legacy of a patriarch who held a key position in a religious order,

    if he isn't sheltered, and was exposed early on to a world that's liberated, though harsh..

    if he isn't brought up in an environment of male chauvinism and homophobia

    then yes.. i guess he's having the time of his life


    #2: then i would rid myself of all the insecurities, issues, negativity and what have you, and just live my life the way i want it.. :)

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    1. #1: Hmmm! A preacher's son. How very interesting.

      Yours would be a classic case of Nature vs. Nurture, Nate. Despite our operant conditioning, what we are deep inside will always try to assert itself.

      Or, as the line in Jurassic Park goes: "Life will find a way."

      I hope you won't need a mirror earth to find yours.

      #2: The best time to live your life the way you want it is now, Nate. Because "now" is all we every really have. The past is spent, and there is never the assurance of a future.

      Or, in the words of the philosopher/skank Ke$ha: "Tik, tok, tik, tok!"

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    2. @ruddie: very interesting, is an understatement.. lolz.. :P

      and, thanks for the insights.. i appreciate it.. :D

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  6. now that i have read the comments and your retort, i reveal my answers:

    a) i'd like to sit down and have coffee with my other selves, compare notes about the differing opinions and decisions we may have. hell, i am pretty sure some of them won't show up because either they don't believe in another self or just too busy fucking the gardener.

    b) been there, been that - as what our social climber friends would say. if the end is near, hmmm everyone must be jumping everybody every single minute. as for me, i intend to go on with my normal life - but probably reading more books, talking to more people, and eating more cheese. but if what i will become in the afterlife is what i do here, i'll eat less cheese then.

    as for the movies, my friend walked out of melancholia in the first 15 minutes. nahilo daw sya. lol.

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    1. Ahahhahahaha, Kiks! I suppose I should've mentioned that Von Trier's camerawork in the first chapter of Melancholia was vertigo-inducing. I too felt a little nauseous from that maddeningly-frenetic camerawork and, like your friend, almost ejected the DVD, but I soldiered on to the more cinematically-normal Chapter 2 and the ending.

      Having a reputation as somewhat the movies' equivalent of an internet troll, I wonder if Von Trier did it on purpose to disorient the viewer. Now as for your answers:

      a.) "... i am pretty sure some of them won't show up because either they don't believe in another self or just too busy fucking the gardener. "

      This had me in stitches.

      b.) "been there, been that - as what our social climber friends would say"

      This, too. As well as the "less cheese" part.

      Apropos of that, I was just shooting the breeze with the driver last night while stuck in Makati traffic, and at one point he asked me what I would do if the world were really to end this year.

      Without hesitation, I replied I'd start smoking like a fiend again. And I suppose it's wrong of me to almost wish the end was near just so I can have my nicotine fix again.

      :P

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  7. Bakit ba ngaun lang ako nagawi dito. Hmmmnn..
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    Anyway, I worship Lars von Trier, I think there could be no other words to describe my fascination (it's not even enough) with his works. He's been a huge influence on my writings, even my person.
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    Melancholia is superb. Try Antichrist also by Lars von Trier.
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    And to your question, if ever it's really the end of the world this year, I guess it's time to be devirginized. *grin*
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    I kid!!!!!!!! :D

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    1. "Bakit ba ngaun lang ako nagawi dito."

      I dunno. I think you were too busy despairing over the world.

      At any rate, now I begin to understand, looking at Von Trier's work and your blog, DB. Hmm.

      While his subject matter often deals with such sunny stuff as anxiety, despair, and hopelessness, there's no question Von Trier is quite the agent provocateur. Your love affair with these things, though, strike me as genuine and not merely trolling, as Von Trier is sometimes wont to do.

      The headache-inducing camerawork in the first chapter aside, I quite liked Melancholia. It's a good thing Von Trier is also a gifted visual stylist: many of his tableaux in Melancholia evoke those in Antichrist. I don't quite recall similarly-striking visual compositions in Dancer In The Dark, although perhaps that story did not require his signature surreal stylings.
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      "And to your question, if ever it's really the end of the world this year, I guess it's time to be devirginized. *grin*
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      I kid!!!!!!!! :D"


      No, you don't.

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    2. "Nature is Satan's church."
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      I really did kid about that, Monsieur Rudeboy.
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      Anyway, Dancer in Dancer do have some of those striking visual, at least to me, but I agree it's not as morbidly disturbing like Melancholia and Antichrist. I had nightmares the nights that followed after watching it. But maybe it should be noted that dispute sparked between Von Trier and Bjork. Call that clash of artistic-schizophrenia.
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      My friends used to worry about my "love affair" with Von Trier's works and the message they carry. But what could I do? I always find myself in the middle of that woods wandering and all. Always.

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    3. I envision you in the dark woods called Eden, DB. Walking in the midnight mists as blanched bodies - lingering ghosts of past tragedies - are strewn all around you.

      The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.
      But you have promises to keep.
      And miles to go before you sleep.

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