Nityadil

Category: Sci-Fi

  • Spaceman (2024) Review

    General Synopsis

    Jakub, a Czech astronaut, is on a solo mission to collect a sample from a mysterious purple mist that appeared near Earth four years before. During this mission, his pregnant wife Lenka decides to leave him, which is kept from him by his care team on Earth. Not being able to communicate with his wife, he becomes more and more depressed. One day, he discovers that a giant spider shaped alien has been staying with him and studying him. They start talking, exploring Jakub’s memories and traumas, and Jakub names them Hanuš. They reach the mist, Jakub finds out Hanuš is dying and they both explore the mist, leading to Jakub starting to accept his trauma and move on from it. When he talks to Lenka, it implies a probable reconciliation upon his return to Earth.

    Upon watching Spaceman, I logged into Letterboxd, as I usually do, hoping to see glowing reviews, a 3.4 to 4.0 rating average and some funny comments about the giant alien spider giving therapy sessions to a random Czech man. And, so, I was surprised to find it had a 3.0 and mostly jeering comments about how “men need to go to space and talk to an alien to find out they love their wife.” I went to cross-reference to Rotten Tomatoes, and found basically the same: 50% from the reviewers, 65% from the popular ratings and a general opinion of it being “too sad and philosophical”.

    I won’t say I don’t understand these opinions. There is a history of women mostly being used for men’s development in stories without earning any personality traits other than “sad” and “wife”. There is even a name for it: the “Dead Wife” or “Disposible Woman” trope. And let us not forget the sadly necessary and still timely Bechdel Test, whose only requirement for passing is for there to be two or more women in a movie who have a conversation not concerning a man. And, on the other hand, the movie is slow and sad. However, I think there is more to this movie than this.

    Disposable Woman

    Whereas other stories may follow the same beats – unhappy marriage, miserable wife, husband learns his lesson, hopeful ending indicating probable reunion –, the wife in question has much more impact, personality and autonomy than what I myself expected. 

    1) Lenka decides to leave Jakub for very legitimate reasons. She is pregnant and alone, and is unable to trust Jakub, as he has shown no commitment to keeping his previous promises and is so focused on himself that he barely knows his wife.

    2) Lenka has space to express some very complex feelings that are not solely focused on her marriage. Obviously, this story is mostly about the impact of unprocessed trauma on relationships, leading to lack of communication and, eventually, trust, and Lenka is shown mourning the marriage she thought she had and that could have been. However, she is also grappling with the responsibility of a child and having to think what’s best for them. Through her present decisions and the glimpses into Lenka and Jakub’s past memories, Lenka is shown to be adventurous, impulsive, caring, insecure, headstrong, intelligent and brave. She approached Jakub first, she took him on adventures, like choosing their future home or breaking and entering a pool and skinny dipping. She tried to help Jakub through his issues, talking to him and offering him a safe space, even though he made her feel small and unimportant. She decided to leave Jakub when she understood that he would not be a good enough father, placing her in a very fragile support situation. Still, she rectified this fragility and found her own support, even if it meant being “surrounded by strangers in a forest.”

    3) Lenka is at the centre of the story. The reason the space trip is a problem is because Jakub is betraying Lenka. The reason Jakub is doing badly is the lack of contact with Lenka. The reason Hanuš becomes disillusioned with Jakub is them witnessing Jakub’s selfishness towards Lenka: he says he loves her, but leaves her alone as an act of self-punishment, and doesn’t notice it is also a punishment for her because he’s so blinded by his own feelings of inadequacy. The reason Jakub wants to become a better person and overcome his trauma and trauma-related shortcomings is for a second chance with Lenka. And she is the one who has a say on the rekindling of their relationship: it isn’t the completion of the mission that shows “reliability” and they immediately get back together. In many movies, a couple is separated and, during an unlikely event that threatens their future, they reorganise their priorities, they remember what they loved about each other and, in the, just… get back together. Not saying this isn’t possible, however, it would make for poor storytelling in this case. The threat is Jakub and his decisions. Thus, the ‘adventure’ is him realising the harm he is causing, apologising and asking for a second chance. And, in the end, Jakub gets a hopeful ending, not an immediate reward for his ‘good behaviour’.

    In sum, despite Spaceman being about a man and his struggles, Lenka does not appear to be a simple side prop only present for further characterisation of the male protagonist or as a symbol/trophy of his success. It even manages to pass the Bechdel test, as Commissioner Tůmová has a conversation about Lenka with another woman on a plane. In the end, yes, Jakub did have a terrifying giant spider-shaped alien psycho-analysing him and his memories instead of just talking to his wife or a therapist. However, not to remember he loved his wife, but to realise he deserves love and to not waste the love he already has. This movie isn’t a feminist breakthrough, but it seems to me to have done more than the bare minimum in terms of its treatment of the ‘wife character’. I mean, she is alive, has more than two lines and doesn’t downplay her emotions in order to go around her husband’s. The bar is low, sure, but it is important to continue raising it to ensure that it is no longer accepted to treat women like props.

    Pitiful and Pretentious

    Among the most common criticisms – not including the ‘going to space and becoming friends with an alien instead of talking to your wife’ ones – are that Spaceman is sad, slow, and pseudo-philosophical. But is it?


    Firstly, this movie is indeed sad. It is. But, is that a bad thing? Is there a Hollywood/Oscars curse making movies only able to be sad if they are happy at the end or utterly miserable and depressing the whole way through? Is it that we feel entitled to happiness because we cannot handle a sad movie? I don’t know. Either way, I disagree that this is an acceptable criticism, it is simply a characteristic. And this movie couldn’t be anything else. It deals with deeply hurt people reconciling with their past mistakes and the processing of trauma. This isn’t an all-encompassing portrayal, it’s a quick look into the possible consequences of these mistakes and what it could take to start solving them. I describe the ending as hopeful and not happy because Lenka and Jakub are still hurt; they are not over the finish line, they just started the marathon but can envision its end.

    In terms of the film’s pacing, it’s, again, a characteristic. The story mostly occurs in space, a literal vacuum, and its main characters are a depressed man losing his wife, an alien that lost their planet and a woman that has lost trust in her partner and their marriage. From setting to theme, this story is about literal loneliness. Part of being lonely is the staticity, the lack of change, the bleeding of days into each other, a complete unawareness of time. In terms of practical story-telling, the slow pace of the movie attempts to convey what Jakub, directly, and Lenka, indirectly, are feeling, as they don’t have the luxury of 2x speeding through his mission, or skipping to the end. This type of story cannot be shown through the usual ‘necessary for the plot’ scenes, the plot is psychological evolution.

    Finally, I believe Spaceman beautifully delivers its main point, one with merit and worth discussing: the universe doesn’t keep score, we do. This way, while we don’t owe anyone anything, as there is no metaphysical-quantum-astronomical bill to pay, our actions do impact others, and they also don’t owe us anything. So, Jakub doesn’t have to tell Lenka anything; however, he doesn’t because of a perceived debt to his father, who has died and has no bearing in the present, and Lenka doesn’t have to stick around on the sidelines watching his foolhardy attempt to settle it.

    Sometimes, the best way to take stock of your life and choices is through distance from the normal and through the eyes of someone with a completely different mindset. Once Jakub is able to see just how much nothing matters to the universe, no scores to settle, no sins to absolve, and everything matters to the ones you love, how you treat them, he is able to see that he is simply holding himself back for no reason. Once he meets someone who has actually lost everything with no chance, way, or power to bring it back, he is forced to see that he does have the power to change things, he was just surrendering it to pain of the past. Nothing is permanent, since everything that has a beginning has an end, but what you do stays in the minds of those around you.

    I hope Hanuš is happy among the beginning 🙂

  • Snowpiercer (2013) Analysis

    Snowpiercer explores, as many have pointed out, class inequality, oppression and human nature. However, there are some criticisms that I believe are/could be misplaced.

    1. This wouldn’t be possible.

    From what the movie informed us, Wilford had built this self-sustaining train that was made to withstand very high and very low temperatures, as its planned course included extreme temperature regions. I don’t believe that he actually predicted the global freezing, I think he, and all the people that made it to the train, were in the right place in the right time. And, as shown in the end, Wilford is more than happy to use people to continue the train: who knows, maybe he’s sent out some people to fix issues accounting for their inevitable death. And, just like Andy, they would be so influenced by his manipulation they wouldn’t even question it. Also, a lot of stories are set in impossible settings, like magic or sci-fi, but that doesn’t make the story less interesting or unable to offer allegory/comparison for real life. Most of these stories are exactly this.

    2. Why would they keep the tail people?

    If you want to keep people in line, it is important to create a mythology and indoctrinate the ones you lead: thus, Wilford the Merciful and Benevolent and the Divine Engine are created. This is further underlined by the hand motions that seem to be automatic for people when regurgitating the “keep in your place” propaganda. The way you control everyone is to oppress a group severely and inhumanely and use it as a threat of what could happen to the ones above if they fall out of line, just like in every empire. Just like the birds and the one stone, they save resources by not giving them to the tail people and this lack of resources is what psychologically keeps the system going. On the other hand, they can also use the tail people for manual labour that is needed but not desirable. And they have to keep the system going because it is what appears to be keeping everyone alive. If they were such a nuisance, the front would have already killed all of them and used them as fuel for something on the train. It is also my belief that people that weren’t able to pay for the train tickets aren’t “freeloaders”, they’re human beings who deserve dignity and survival and that, just like everyone on that train, were just trying to survive.

    3. Why didn’t Curtis just take over the train and fix the inequality?

    I believe this movie is trying to caution the people that plan to “fix it from the inside” that they are not immune to propaganda and that, in many cases, it is how the system is set up that is the problem, not the people who run it. This is exemplified by the ending. Only Namgoong cared that the snow was melting and bothered to check, so, clearly the ones in the front didn’t want to risk the end of a system that, right now, ensures their comfort. Curtis almost took the mantle of “conductor” by believing that he could fix the inequality himself, showing the power of propaganda over people, especially ones mentally suffering under oppression. But he discovers that, actually, the Divine Non-Stop Engine is neither divine nor non-stop and it relies on human exploitation — thus, the system is the problem. If it relies on human suffering, is it actually a good system? What would Curtis do, just accept that they would have to make 5 year-old children constantly be working in a dangerous situation forever? No, you have to tear it down, aka, stop the train.

    CONCLUSION

    In the end, I believe this movie defends several points:

    1. People are not inherently greedy. In the beginning, all it took was for someone to sacrifice a part of himself for people to realise that what they were doing was wrong and only borne out of desperation and emotional disconnection and to stop; when Curtis was allowed to process what he’d done, he felt so guilty that it drove him to revolution. Not to suicide, not to revenge, but to lead a community effort to avoid anyone ever having to be sacrificed or having to know what people taste like. The front people are greedy because, just like today’s billionaires, they have so much and the tail people so little that the only way they can accept what is being done to the latter is to dehumanise themselves by following Wilford and his propaganda and to develop disdain for the ‘rightfully inferior’ tail people.

    2. When a system is built like this, there is no way to fix it. Because there will always be someone that must be sacrificed to the engine, someone that will have to be exploited. Even if Curtis became the leader and started to share resources and work more fairly, this would still not fix the train. This would still be accepting the bounds of the society created by ones that built it on the backs of the exploited and that had no plans to change; even if there was  possibility of survival outside these bounds.

    3. A system built on violence can only be undone by violence. If any attempt for betterment is met with brutality and punishment and death, the only way to stop this retaliation is to make it impossible. That’s why revolutions are rarely a peaceful handover of power: the ones that have it don’t want to lose it and are willing to kill to keep it. People have to fight to live free or die fighting to free others.

    TO FINISH

    I am definitely missing some aspects, as I don’t know what to make of the whole Gilliam situation: was he really a traitor or was “cut out his tongue” a warning for Wilford’s powerful manipulation? However, I appreciated this movie and how it managed to represent in such a small scale our own society: basically impossible to rise the ranks, constant fear of dropping in the ranks, the exploitation of people when it is possible to feed and house everyone, and, becoming more pressing now, the climate change that is looming while we go in circles crashing against its consequences, holding on and hoping that it isn’t the rupture point when it all comes down.