Another Earth (Mike Cahill, 2011)

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therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Another Earth (Mike Cahill, 2011)

#51 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Jul 17, 2020 12:07 am

Marling, always preoccupied with the endless possibilities from shifting perspectives (“Why do we call us ‘Earth 1’ and them ‘Earth 2’?”), brings us a tale that exists in a very special realm, one that recognizes the innate conflicts in human existence. These emanate in a few different ways: First, from the compulsory spinning memories in each of us that must contend with imperfect histories; and second, polarized by the competing truths in our minimal importance and supreme importance, depending on the vantage point. The distraction of another planet out in space is a reminder of how insignificant we are, yet the consequences of the negligence that results from this existential distraction destroys a life. How can our actions instigate effects of maximum alterations in another’s life, and simultaneously not matter to most of the universe? This enigmatic rhetorical question sits at the center of Another Earth, which after two viewings nearly a decade apart stands out as the most intelligent film Marling has contributed to, and is also probably her greatest.

I like domino’s reading that we need not analyze as much as stew with the reality that we cannot escape our pasts, that rehabilitation has its limits, and that our drive to undo, to go back, and to wrestle with our histories, greatly contributes to our suffering. This is a film that refuses to declare that acceptance is the answer, for that would be too simple and negate the struggle. Instead it poses a terrific question that rarely gets asked of audiences (because they don’t want to be asked): Is self-acceptance itself problematic, when you’ve harmed others and taken their lives away? Isn’t the search for a single answer, strategy, or position directly in contrast with the fidelity of life’s design as a series of ups and downs, full of wavering stances, and a refusal to achieve finite catharsis? If it wasn’t wouldn’t we have a greater grasp on our problems, or be able to orchestrate ourselves according to a sole tool?

Marling loves sitting in discomfort, to the point where the embrace of enigmas, including the pain, fuels her appreciation of life (I can relate). She and her collaborators are obsessed with engaging in philosophical debates through artistic means; and since they know that these questions are unanswerable, and that the responses lie in emotions, that is where they focus their energy. Per usual the science-fiction genre device is a dramatic vehicle to examine humanity, but the method and depth, by which all creative auteurs involved venture into the broken souls of people, transforms the specific into the universal.

I firmly believe that everyone who has lived into adulthood is bruised with marginal traumas, and only escapes complete fragmentation through a series of coping mechanisms used to blind oneself from the pain. Here is a film that masochistically faces the past, in the present, to desperately strive for some kind of future. It’s about the act of coping with what is unchangeable through tactile actions, a Sisyphean web we’ve all been caught in, and probably all are continuously relaying through to some degree- we’re just choosing not to think about it all the time. Self-destruction and self-actualization meet here, and the zigzags of searching for forgiveness, hiding in plain sight, and refusing to grant oneself reprieve in perpetual self-flagellation, is brilliantly honest to our cyclical adaptations.

Would having a second version of ourselves out there help lessen the load, or just make us feel worse? Can we ever truly escape from ourselves? What if we just choose to fall in love with the sound that drives us crazy, like Marling’s story of the astronaut? Marling and Cahill know that’s not possible to sustain, just like she cannot hang onto her own sublimation that briefly morphs guilt into love. But it’s nice to think about, and optimistically speaking, it’s certainly a part of the puzzle. In this cosmic allegory the size of the same year's Melancholia, we end not with an annihilating apocalypse but with the inverse; the real kind of apocalypse, the ones that don’t offer us a way out, that sneak up behind us and look us in the mirror.
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I’m much less interested in the ‘how’s and ‘why’s of the ending, and more with the duality that her double presents, that is wholly in step with the film’s diverse poles of managing emotional baggage. The presence of her double is a reminder of her past as inescapable, sure, but it’s no coincidence that this double moves towards her, initiating a gesture of communication before the screen cuts to black. She seems to be raising and extending her arm as she lunges forth, and I imagine this to be a caring gesture. Even if Rhoda is trapped with herself, unable to erase the scarlet letter infused in her own mind that brands her identity, her double allows her not to be alone. There is something incredibly empowering about this acting as an additional metaphor: We are never alone because we have ourselves to offer support. Here is Rhoda’s double, a three-dimensional human being who exists as more than just her history of harm. I believe that Rhoda 1 and Rhoda 2 will be able to console one another, just as each will remind the other of their failures. After all, this is how our psyches work, and we can understand the double as an externalization of the self finally ready to start the conversation that's been evaded for years out of defensive fear.

The details of what happened on Earth 2 aren't significant, but the ability to sit with oneself and work through the trauma to varying degrees of self-love and self-loathing is significant. The experience will be partly negative, but I see that final gesture to be the mark of a beginning of something beautiful. Rhoda is confronting herself for the first time, and about to engage in self-talk rather than persisting in the endless loop of trying to evade or punish herself with tangible actions (freezing herself to death, engaging in constant movements on walks alone, toward the casualty of her crime, etc.). I don't know what could be more scary than abruptly stopping that movement to face oneself. I also can't think of any ending more hopeful.

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