Summary
A visitor from another planet observes human individuals, groups, patterns, and behaviour from a detached alien point of view.
The Film
This is one of my favorite Sci Fi films of all time. Like “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Ex Machina,’ and “Solaris,” the focus of the film is not on the details of space travel and how it occurs, interstellar politics, or planetary war. Instead, this film focuses on what it is about human beings that makes us who we are, distinct from the world around us.
From the beginning of the film, the Female Visitor, performed in a masterfully subdued manner by Scarlett Johansson (“Avengers: Endgame”), becomes a sort of stand in for the audience, a tool to detach us from the typical ways we might people watch or observe those around us.
This detachment brings with it interesting thoughts into the mind of the viewer. Do those people not resemble a herd that is migrating. Those people look ever watchful, and those ones like that loner monkey on the outside of the larger group. It brings out the Jane Goodall in each of us as we watch the fascinating creature called Human.
To bring about such an interesting shift in the audiences POV is no small feat. It takes a familiarity and comfort with the language of cinema to keep from filming anything in the typical way you would in a more run of the mill, general audience oriented film. Nothing in this film feels everyday or mundane, except perhaps, the way that the human being behave and interact with the Female. Even setting the film in Scotland, where the accents are thick and soupy, make it feel as if you are studying a race that speaks a different language than you do.
I expect some people might be turned off from this film because there are several scenes where the Female Visitor is naked but again I didn’t find myself struggling to keep my thoughts clean or anything like that. These scenes are instead a way of showing how easily humans are trapped by sex, even when the seduction is done in the most clinical, cold, and un-sexy way. Honestly, this film felt about as sexy, to me, as a naked monkey must seem sexy to a scientist running lab experiments on it.
Other than those scenes, I can’t think of a reason why I would ever not recommend this film to someone. However, I would do so with a caveat or word of warning that is slower paced than your average film, more esoteric, and has no interest in explaining things to the audience. It is meant to be felt and experienced, not watched and analyzed. It’s a drug you take to experience the world from a different vantage point. It’s a mountain top you climb in order to enjoy the view. You won’t enjoy it more by studying what the drug does or through knowledge of who it was that first forged the mountain pass you walked to reach the summit.
I’m here next to you as you watch and ask such questions saying, “Shut up. Look at that amazing view.”
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