Weekly series. Please send in your movies via email, twitter etc. Our format :
- Three movies with meaning (and movies you love and recommend!)
- One sentence on the core meaning you take from it
- Send a link to a YouTube clip from the movie that speaks to that meaning
Time.
We never seem to have enough of it. As Leaders, we often spend time rushing around, without time for presence, time to pause, time for silence, for solitude. (These are all recurring subjects on this site, a search on any on those terms will turn up multiple posts).
Today, then, three movies with premises that mess with time and so really give pause for thought. Take the time (sorry!) to watch the clips and add them to your list to watch (or even to rewatch).
Their time bending premises:
- What if past, present and future are not linear, they are circular and so all are being formed at once, such that we know what has happened, is happening and will happen?
- What is the meaning of our lives and so of the future and our present if suddenly no children can be born anywhere and to anyone?
- What if you only could exist in the outside world one day in every week?
Arrival (2016)
“There are days that define your story beyond your life”
The idea for the movie came from Ted Chiang, who wanted to “tell a story about a character who had knowledge of the future but couldn’t change it, and who knew that both great joy and great pain lay ahead. And that person would go forward and meet that future deliberately. So then I had to figure out how to give my protagonist this knowledge of the future.”
He did this by playing with a concept called the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. “That’s the idea that the language you speak not only shapes the way you think but can actually even affect the way you perceive the universe.”
On a personal level, I’ve had exposure to multiple languages in my life (though only (partly?) fluent in one, English!) and I do have the sense that language, allied with culture, absolutely impacts the way we perceive the universe.
Now, what then happens in the extremes, when the language of the aliens is not spoken, but felt and though, is in circular form, and tells the past, present and future all at once?
What sounds like a dry concept actually created, in the hands of the brilliant Denis Villeneuve… and I say this with recognition of my words… the most powerful movie I’ve ever seen.
I walked out of the cinema after the first viewing and felt the impact of the movie on my world view, and that impression has only grown stronger since.
Children of Men (2006)
The word “dystopian” has become widely used, particularly around futuristic movies where things have turned for the worse (a highlight of dystopian films and a personal favourite being the original Blade Runner).
It is actually (as we were just talking about language), a synthesis of “dys” and “utopia”.
What could be more dystopian than a world in which women can no longer have children. What is there left to hope for ?… unless….great performance by Clive Owen in a terrific movie by the great Alfonso Cuaron.
What Happened to Monday (2017)
Noomi Rapace burst into fame as the lead in the original swedish “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”.
In this action thriller she is amazing times seven, playing the roles of seven identical siblings, brilliantly portraying both the individuality of each one and at the same time their so, so closeness due to their bindingly tight ties.