The Martyr on the Moon

                This week we watched the 2009 Sci-Fi movie Moon; a movie following Sam Bell, a Lunar Industries astronaut whose job for the past 3 years had been upkeep of their energy harvest site on the moon. His work on the moon is one of the keys to continued energy supply for Earth, which had become an issue that had begun to seriously plague society. Unaware to Sam, he is actually only a genetic clone of the original Sam Bell who had initially been given this task, but eventually experienced such personal suffering during his duration that the job was reassigned to a never ending stream of his clones.  The personal suffering Sam experienced was a result of the extreme isolation that his job required and the extreme length of time isolation occurred over.

                Beyond the plot, Sam’s isolation is highlighted through different cinematic techniques.  The way in which the movie was shot effectively illustrated this point by presenting Sam in a more lonely light through use of different types of shots. Throughout the film long shots tend to be used to show the emptiness that surrounds both Sams within the ship, which tend to pan around to further emphasize the point.

                The isolation Sam experiences is further alluded to during his video messaging exchanges with his wife. For Sam, these moments are the times he feels least isolated from the world, as displayed by the shorter shots used which blur the background and emphasize Sam, yet they still appear empty. For example, when the video glitches (~12:00) during the first video he receives from Tess the shot immediately changes to highlight the emptiness that surrounds him by showing him alone against the larger backdrop; by doing this, the director allows us to begin to feel as if there is a lack of authenticity in Sam’s exchanges with the outside world. Not only this, but the way Sam’s messages are continuously replayed on the ship by showing the viewer-less display of Sam alludes to the later realization that the messages never leave the ship.  Of course, we come to learn that everything Sam has been brought to believe is in fact false, and there is no authenticity in his exchanges with the outside world.

                With this in mind, idea of the movies setting becomes more intriguing. Moon opens with an ad from Lunar Industries chronicling the now obligatory need for lunar energy. This is the only scene in the movie where life is on screen. By juxtaposing the life on earth with the desolate dark side of the moon, right from the get go, the setting helps the audience further assume Sam’s isolation. The setting and use of different shots all aid the audience in understanding how barren a situation Sam is left in, but this in itself is not how they contribute to the films purpose. By allowing the viewer to come to these conclusions, the purpose of the film becomes more clear. Moon serves to ask the question of whether it is morally okay for a Sam Bell to be forced to exist. When his isolated existence is finally leaked from the far side of the moon (an allusion to the idea that the far side of the moon is where information can neither be transmitted or received) a frenzy erupts on Earth about what should be done. Up until this point, though, the Sam’s had been forced to serve as the Earth’s energy martyr by giving up his life so that the energy woes of earth could be relieved. His role as Earth’s unknown martyr is brought to life in the film as a result of the apparent isolation he lives in due to the use of long shots and lunar setting. 

The Kee to Life is Found

Children of Men is a movie about a dystopic future where infertility has become pandemic to the point that no child has been born in 18 years. The cause of infertility isn’t known and despite efforts no cure or solution has even begin to be found, so the world is living in a state of perennial hopelessness; that is until Kee, a refugee in Britain is discovered to be pregnant. A key scene in the opening of the movie is the car scene in which Kee and Theo’s journey truly begins. For Theo, it is the end of his role as a observer and beginning of his role as a hero, although a passive one at that.

                At the beginning of the scene, Theo is awoke, unknowingly, to his new found purpose in life which is simply to save humanity.  For Theo, this task takes on an even larger significance than the future of the world; it’s a tribute to his clearly lingering relationship with his ex-beau Julian. Their personal moment of shooting ping pong balls back and forth is immediately interrupted by her untimely death. From this point on Julian’s ambition to save Kee are lived vicariously through Theo, which is exemplified by the ominous dead tone during and after the shooting. When thinking about Theo’s newfound purpose, I couldn’t help but reflect to the scene when he is attempting to get papers from his cousin for Kee. When there, he can’t help but question what drove his cousin to continue to work, which is a question that’s really being directed towards all of society. When juxtaposing these two scenes, it’s clear that Theo is the only person who truly has a purpose in life that is only realized upon waking up in the car to his future destiny.

Interestingly, the van in the scene is from the Biological Institute. Biology literally means the study of life, something the society in Children of Men was incessantly trying to master so that they could create life, while the only person on earth who can create life is being driven in the stolen Biological Institute van. Even more ironic, the van is obviously Government sponsored, and one of the prevailing themes throughout the movie is the anti-immigration sentiment displayed within the move. While the only person who is able to achieve the miracle of life, is in fact one of the Fugee people that the government is persecuting and trying to rid society of so venomently. By filming the scene in a single shot the director very effectively added a heightened sense of tension and significance that makes this already pulse pounding scene stick out further.

David Defeats Goliath to be Recognized as a Boy

                In this futuristic tale David, a cybetronic “mecha”, is abandoned by his mother and hopes to win back her affection by becoming a real boy. David’s ability to love appears unquestionable when watching the movie. His unending love for his mother is the vehicle through which the entire story takes place. A central question in the story, though, is not whether David can love, but whether David can truly be loved as a mecha. Although initially skeptical of keeping David, his mother Monica warms to him and programs him to view her as his mother which triggers his unending love for her. As Dr. Hobby postulated when he said, “Didn’t God create Adam to love him?”, soon after David’s programming, Monica begins to reciprocate her motherly love back. Her love for David was clear and distinct from how he’s treated throughout the rest of the film because Monica, while aware David is a mecha, still makes no distinction in how she treats him compared to a “real” boy. For example her continually referring to him as “just a boy” and beginning to treat him as if he was a newly adopted son is starkly in contrast to how any other human will treat David once aware he’s a mecha.

                In general, most viewed David as an unbelievable Science Project to be marveled at with no recognition of David himself. He’s never treated as just a boy once his true identity is revealed, as made evident by the pool scene. Even the childlike naivety wasn’t enough to allow for the children to view David as David upon learning he was a mecha, instead he is immediately put under the figurative microscope to be dissected by the children. Even his own creator, after seeing the undeniable success his creation was, is far more interested with the intricacies of how the circuits work than David himself; meaning in this case God created Adam to love him, but did not love Adam back himself.

                A question this all beckons, though, is what is love and is it distinctly human? A great scene in the movie is when one of the mechas is asked to describe what love is. She gives a very quantitative description of love that amuses Hobby and the other scientists. But in reality can any of us truly define what love is in words? Whether love is viewed scientifically or mystically, the sensation we all ascribe to it is beyond comprehension in words alone. In science, as we discussed in class, the mechanism of love that   David has boils down to electrical impulses through circuitry, which is analogous to humans. Not only this, even our maternal imprinting functions similar to the codes Monica entered into David, upon his birth as her son, making the scientific definition not a true distinction at all. As far as the religious definition, as a Hindu I believe in the Aatman, or God, within all of us, and it is thought that the indescribable feeling that we ascribe to Love is a subtle connection of the Aatmans of two people that make them interconnected. In this sense, too, David clearly displays love towards Monica and vice versa; when things got bad, Monica recognized David as more than a mecha and believed the entity within him was worth saving.

                Although Monica was able to love David, she was the only one. If the Aatman was a lamp that was covered by dust, only Monica’s light would be able penetrate the dust to gleen through her preconceived notions of what’s real.  

                

Blade Running from Reality

                Blade Runner is a dystopian film set in 2019 in which a few elite corporations seemingly come to replace government as the central institution of society. The crux of the story is the advent of human replicates that are nearly indistinguishable from humans without proper training. The replicates are so life like that they themselves may not even realize they are replicates, potentially allowing them to develop emotions and feelings to beyond what was initially programmed into their minds.

                One of the reoccurring questions throughout the movie is whether Deckard, the Blade Runner, is himself a replicate. Throughout the film Deckard’s interactions continue to lead one to believe he is a replicate, although it is never explicitly stated, which forces one to question who at all is human. One of the distinctions that is used in the movie as evidence of being human is having thoughts and memories that are independent and isolated from others. That is the criterion that allowed a replicate to believe themselves to be human, as evidenced when Rachel realizes she is a replicate upon hearing that her memories are not unique to her conscious. Applying this to the final scene where Gaff leaves behind the paper Unicorn that Deckard had dreamed of strongly points to Deckard’s thoughts, too, not being uniquely his own.  

                Another motif throughout the film is the use of eyes as evidence for humanity. This is drawing upon the age old concept of the eyes as the gateway to the soul. The most basic test they have for detection of replicates is the VOID test which does exactly that, peer into the eyes in order to see a soul. More subtle than the VOID test, the replicate eyes were all given a nonhuman luminosity which alludes to the replicates as animal like and inferior to humans.

                An interesting undertone I sensed throughout the film was that the traditional economic class system had been replaced in the movie by a class system based on race (replicate vs human races). Throughout the movie it is alluded to that the majority of humans have abandoned earth, and those that are introduced that do remain tend only to be part of the replicate manufacturing and policing process. I believe Ridley Scott was attempting to epitomize the class struggle that is felt by an oppressed lower class through the replicates struggle. Earth is the ghetto in which they live and their life span is the constraint imposed on them to hold them down. It reminds me of the dysfunctional economic policies of many 3^rd World countries where the government is, more or less, a conglomerate of the wealthiest putting in place policies to keep themselves in control. The struggle of the lower class of these countries to try to fight the oppression and regain control of their lives is something I saw in Zhora and Battys’ attempt to finally gain control of their lives.