ANOTHER EARTH (CINEMA)
20th Century Fox International
October 8th at the Sci-Fi London Film Festival
Release date: December 2nd, 2011
Certificate (UK): 12A
Running time: 92 minutesDirector: Mike Cahill
Writers: Mike Cahill, Brit Marling
Music: Fall On Your Sword
Cast: Brit Marling, Matthew-Lee Erlbach, William Mapother
Another Earth is a refreshing, thoughtful and important science fiction film which takes a more introspective approach when faced with an event that can change not only everything most of us have ever known but also felt and believed.
A handful of us though have long imagined this to be possible, especially after reading Brian Greene, Michio Kaku or Fred Alan Wolf or by just looking at the state of the world in the past 100 years and thinking there has to be another way.
Another Earth is significantly different though in its approach. It doesn’t portray this other Earth as a utopian planet; in fact, we never get to experience it up close for ourselves during the course of the movie. It delivers us the “broken mirror theory” spoken by Dr. Richard Berendzen, which posits that as soon as the two parallel earths become aware of each other, their synchronicity is broken and from there they each follow different paths.
The ideas encapsulated within it are deeply rooted physics and philosophy but at its centre is a story about the greatest mystery of all – ourselves. There’s so much to think about here and I am grateful that there are filmmakers out there willing to take a chance and put forward something which steers us away from intergalactic war, military operations and cliché dialogue and more towards to the implications such a discovery would have for us in terms of a shift in human consciousness and exploration of the human condition. As Cahill himself says:
I was left stunned, not by dazzling special effects or big name stars, but by the fact there was someone else out there who thinks about multiverses, string theory and “parallelities” – a term for parallel realities, in such a way that its able to have an emotional impact that remains long after the credits fade.
Another Earth is quite simply another type of film, it defies genre expectations and begs of you put aside everything you think you know and ask “what if”. Its direction, cast and enthralling and hypnotic score – a combination of electronic and classical – together with its well crafted story makes it magnetic, impossible to forget and truly unique.
About Patrick Samuel
The founder of Static Mass Emporium and one of its Editors in Chief is a composer and music producer with a philosophy degree. Static Mass is where he lives his passion for film and writing about it. A fan of film classics, documentaries and World Cinema, Patrick prefers films with an impeccable way of storytelling that reflect on the human condition.