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No uncertainty about Uncertainty
We are all faced with hundreds, maybe thousands, of minuscule decisions each day. Bus or subway? Where and when to go to lunch? Work late or cut out early? The other day during a much-needed day of hookey from the YIL-factory I was walking by the IFC Center and saw a poster for Uncertainty, next showing in twenty minutes. I was sick of walking the streets in the cold and not buying Christmas presents so I ducked into the theatre and am very glad I did.
Manhattan or Brooklyn?
Easy question. Where to spend the 4th of July. Your girlfriend’s family’s party in Brooklyn or your buddy’s party in Manhattan. Flip a coin.
That’s how Uncertainybegins. With the flip of a coin. What follows are two separate movies: one follows Bobby (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his girlfriend Kate (Lynn Collins) to Brooklyn. Intertwined is the second movie – what would have happen had the two chosen to spend the day in Manhattan.
At first glimpse the premise is reminiscent of the less-than-stellar Gwyneth Paltrow 1998 film Sliding Doors (I much prefer her Great Expectations from the same year). To keep both Uncertainy story lines separate the film’s writers/directors used color: Yellow for Manhattan (clothes, taxi that brings them there) and Green for Brooklyn (clothes, minivan that brings them there). A much more clever device than Paltrow’s odd blonde/brunette hair cut and coloring.
What follows are two incredible stories as different as can be. In Manhattan Bobby and Kate find a cellphone in the back of a cab that leads to a fast-paced, gripping espionage story of murder, blackmail and what two people would be willing to do for more money than they could ever fathom having with action scenes of roof jumping that rival the Jason Bourne films. Not an easy feat for an independent film.
In Brooklyn, surrounded by her family, Bobby and Kate come to terms about their feelings for each other, their future, her mother’s disapproval. It is an intense, sometimes stifling, family/relationship drama.
The in-depth, claustrophobic nature of the film and the relationship presented on screen set to a defined period of time of both the Manhattan and Brooklyn films reminded me of a mix of Ethan Hawke/Julie Delpy Before Sunrise and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers/Scarlett Johansson Match Point.
While not the perfect movie – a few of the loose ends seem to tie up a bit too easy at the end – Uncertainly certainly is a movie to be seen. Levitt, once again as he did in (500) Days of Summer (which you may or may not have heard I kinda liked), proves his ranking as one of the top actors under thirty today and Lynn Collins shows her dramatic abilities are far superior to her roles in True Blood and X-Men: Wolverine (which is a damn good show and a fine movie themselves).
Its too late to see Uncertainty at the IFC Center in New York (though it does seem to be still playing in LA), but the smart folks over at IFC released the movie On Demandsimul with the theatre release. So look for it there.
Love, God and Brain Damage
This year’s ten-day Imagine Science Film Festival kicks off October 15th with an intriguing lineup of over 50 films. More than a week’s worth of indie films about geeky subjects like wormholes and artificial hearts is a dream come true for the likes of me and my nerdy compatriots. To get a personal perspective on the film, we asked Joel Garber, writer and director of The Strange Rebirth of Andre Weil (buy tickets here) a few questions. Described as “A boy meets girl… Boy gets shot in the head… Boy turns to God short film,” TSROAW tackles the complex intersection of neurology, spirituality and identity, but through the lens of romantic comedy.
Your short film, The Strange Rebirth of Andre Weil, was accepted into quite a few film festivals around the country. Since the film’s themes are so closely tied to science, does the Imagine Science Film Festival feel like an especially natural fit?
Absolutely. David Penn, a friend of mine whose music is used in the film, made me aware of the fest after he’d attended last year. I’m honored to be a part of it this year and TSROAW definitely seems like a good match. A number of the narrative devices in the film are rooted in real science.
What sparked your interest in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, the affliction at the center of the film’s plot?
Well the sort of motivating force behind the movie is my great fear that we’re all one traumatic brain injury away from becoming different people, assuming different identities of one sort or another. In doing research on the variety of afflictions that people suffer as a result of head trauma TLE stood out as especially cinematic because it can be tied into questions of spirituality, and I’ve always loved films that deal with issues of faith and religion. Now having said that, it’s important to remember that my film only scratches the surface as far as tackling these ideas. It’s really more of a romantic comedy. And it’s only 16 minutes long!
This year has been coined “ Darwin Year,” since it’s the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. While natural selection is now the standard rallying cry of atheists and non-believers, many of Darwin’s contemporaries found his theory compatible with their religious views. TSROAW explores the idea that religious fervor and brain chemistry could be linked—but do you see that as a refutation of the existence of a divine creator?
No, and it’s a very good question. I’m loathe to point to the ideas in my film as some sort of silver bullet that disproves religion or religious experience, as someone like Richard Dawkins might. My position is that of an agnostic and I think it’s also the position of the film, as you’ll see. The neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran who’s become pretty well known over the last few years believes that the relationship between the temporal lobes and spirituality could be thought of as a sort of antenna into the mysteries of the universe. I like that idea.
Have you seen any of the other films being featured in this year’s Imagine Science festival? Which are you particularly looking forward to?
I haven’t seen any of the films but In Search of Memory, a documentary about the neuroscientist Eric Kandel looks interesting. There’s also a short about CERN, the large hadron collider in Europe, the most expensive science experiment in history, which I’d like to see.
Q5: While there are a handful of science-based films that have achieved broad-based success (Frankenstein, A Beautiful Mind, Awakenings), the genre doesn’t quite have the box office profile of say, slasher films or period dramas. What are some of your under-appreciated favorites? Did any of them influence TSROAW?
Well I think this festival takes pains to draw a distinction between “science films” and “science fiction films.” Of course, sci-fi has been a huge box office draw. I’m a big fan of the Back to the Future series, but that’s not exactly under appreciated eh? Maybe The Man Who Fell to Earth? Alphaville? Contact? Those aren’t really either. And they’re all “sci-fi,” more then “science.” Jeez man, I think you’ve stumped me! I mean there are hundreds of great films that incorporate science that you wouldn’t really think of categorizing firstly as “science films,” right? How about Herzog’s The White Diamond?
(Watch a trailer for The Strange Rebirth of Andre Weil here.)
