"Stop washing things!"

Another Earth 17/05/12

Director: Mike Cahill

Writers: Mike Cahill, Brit Marling

2011

            The concept for this film (a planet that looks to be capable of supporting life appearing and imposing on the lives of characters on Earth) reminded me of Melancholia(2011), a film which I was very much looking forward to but was let down by. It is one of those curious yet common instances of films with a shared or similar premise being released close together. Often when this happens one is better received than the other, and in this case Another Earth made less of an impact (Melancholia was directed by Lars Von Trier and that was certainly a factor). However due to Melancholia becoming meh-lancolia (sorry) Another Earth was my only hope for this galactic concept to live up to its potential.

            Like Von Trier’s film writers Cahill and Marling made the wise choice of sticking to a couple of linked characters as vehicles for experiencing the planetary phenomenon. While casting a wide net over society may work in some films such as Deep Impact (1998) I think that should be saved for blockbusters. The characters are Rhoda (Brit Marling) and John (William Mapother) who are connected by an accident. Both act very well and I will be looking out for more of their work The accident occurred on the night that the mystery planet was discovered, John lost his family and Rhoda lost her freedom; she was sent to prison for causing the accident. Fast forward 4 years and Rhoda is released, tracks down John (after an artfully shot suicide attempt by freezing to death), and starts to clean his house with him unaware of who she is.

            That is a set up for a very interesting film, potential character conflict that could carry a film by itself with the backdrop of the mystery planet. There is some decent writing, even if it is a little obvious, for example post suicide attempt (ok cool subtext, she wants to stop feeling and be numb) we have a scene where Rhoda tells John she doesn’t mind the cold. OK fine, but why point out the subtext to the audience after the fact? The same thing happens concerning Rhoda’s choice to clean for a living and clean John’s house, pretty obvious what symbolism is pointing to, but they resort to dialogue to point it out in an unconnected scene. Perhaps I was being picky I thought, and my hope was still strong for a quality film.

            I admired how, when dealing with a high concept story (by Mike Cahill), Mike Cahill and his cinematographer....oh that’s Mike Cahill too....erm, made the choice to use camerawork that moves around and keeps us in the real world. This also serves to offset the cold, wintery tone of most of the scenes, and take us just far away from some of the Ingmar Begman worthy misery that the tone isn’t oppressive. That cause is also served by the sharp and sometimes invasive editing (well it’s only done by Mike bloody Cahill!) which when combined with handheld camerawork would usually annoy me and take me out of the story, but juxtaposed as I mentioned with themes of depression and regret it works.

            Other features I admired which create the tone mentioned above are a score that never seems to go away, but rises at opportune moments as good film scores should to highlight a particular emotion, as well as lighting which is well tempered and precise to such a degree of consistency (even when using natural light) that I would happily watch the film again just for that. Unfortunately I can’t give Mike Cahill direct credit for these features as he delegated, but well done anyway. Perhaps the most important tool used in this film is TV and radio sound bites which discuss the possibilities of what the planet may mean for Earth, which becomes known as Earth 1 when we learn that the mystery planet is a mirror of our own. Well the reason that these sound bites stood out to me is they did everything that I wanted the film as a whole to do, and frankly what I wanted Melancholia to do more of; explore the amazing concept! I understand the need to centre the story on a few choice characters but why so much? Yes Rhoda and John’s situation is interesting, but does it warrant staying in one town? On one planet? That is why I found radios spouting philosophy and Avatar (2009) references catching more of my attention than an undeniably interesting personal story.

            Of course the mirror Earth situation does affect Rhoda and John, but for most of the film the only effect is that Rhoda wants to go and meet herself and John wants to stay put. The end result is that two storylines/concepts that would fare well being explored in different films are both dragged down by the other. This combined with a few clumsy lines of dialogue undid much of the great work here by Cahill and his team (of other Mike Cahills). While there is a twist or two worth watching to the end for it could have been much more impressive if they occurred before mundane plot developments two thirds of the way through. I liked this film, and I liked Melancholia...but they fell short.