Another Earth

Winner of the Sundance Film Festival 2011, Another Earth tells the story of Rhoda Williams, who, having been responsible for a car crash which took the lives of  a mother and her children, comes to terms with that.

This story takes place against a backdrop in which another Earth has literally appeared in the sky. Indeed it is the appearance of this other Earth which is partly responsible for the car crash. Rhoda was distracted by it's appearance.

All the way through the film, all I kept thinking, was how unreal this second Earth was, but asking myself why this unreality didn't necessarily impact on what was otherwise the real story. The second Earth starts out as a distant one, a small blue ball. During the course of the film it gets progressively larger in the sky - moving closer. But if such a thing were really happening it would be causing all sorts of strife in gravitational fields. The Earth would be deflected out of it's orbit and we'd be watching a disaster movie which lasted a few minutes.

The way in which the other Earth is mediated is via a number of modes including:

1. As the subject of radio commentary by over-enthusiastic radio hosts, who would otherwise be talking about any equally silly thing.
2. As a vision (a special effect) in the sky, ie. within the film's own reality (as distinct from a radio braodcast within that reality).
3. As the subject of disbelief but otherwise resignation to it's reality, by observers.
4. As the subject of television documentary.

The first acts to treat the other Earth as no different from any other misinformation that goes on in the world of radio.

The second acts as a partial contradiction to the first but one that could be interpreted as an illusion created by the first, ie. when told of something one might believe it and even see it.

The third acts to support the second. A disbelief dispelled by the evidence of it's image (or illusion). The second Earth need not be there but everyone in the film can see it and believes it is there even if we don't. So we can be watching, for example, the deluded, which is not unbelievable.

The fourth is where it runs into a little trouble but is rescued by taking place within the displaced reality of television. It is in a science fiction mode. The trouble is that experts depicted on the television (as distinct from radio jockeys and your average punter) would know better - that it's impossible in the way it is otherwise depicted.

However what is so well done by this film (even if this was not it's original intention) is that this backdrop, of a second Earth emerges as just that: a backdrop. The real story has nothing to do with the second Earth and everything to do with the guilt Rhoda has about the car crash and how she deals with it. And about the sole survivor in the other car. This is the body of the film one might say.

In other words the film is not a science fiction film.

It did, however, begin as one. Or at least the commentary around the film's origins suggest such. Now in this light, the modes in which the science-fiction aspect operates can be re-interpreted as simply an economic device by which otherwise expensive special effects could be bypassed - the basic stuff of low budget film-making. However what emerges in the finished film is that those science fiction (or science fantastic) aspects are (fortuitously, or fortunately) rinsed down to what becomes poetic punctuation.

But had it become a science fiction film (as it originally aspired to be), it could easily have failed to find the story it found. The story of Rhoda's guilt could have been lost, or remained little more than a crutch for posing the science fiction ideas. And being a low budget film it could have easily failed at that as well. It admirably exceeds it's roots, finds it's story, and reposes it's roots as punctuation.

Carl

After writing this post I came across this article which is insightful:
http://io9.com/5822258/secrets-of-another-earth-the-science-fiction-movie-that-rocked-sundance