Sam Rockwell in Moon
Last Friday I enjoyed a double feature, watching Moon and Summer Hours. On the surface, both films seem like worlds apart–literally. With nods to 2001 Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, Solaris and a host of other sci-fi greats, Moon tells the story of relationship, survival and sacrifice through one’s struggle to survive a lonely outpost on the the moon. By contrast, Summer Hours follows the intimate interactions of French siblings as they eat and talk amidst a collection of fine art and thriving plants.
I enjoy watching two films at a time. The similarities and variations in the films raise questions that I might not have noticed in isolation.
So to paraphrase Tertullian’s biting question, “What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?, ” I wonder aloud, “What does Moon have to do with Summer Hours?” in response, I offer a few thoughts below. Just a warning before you proceed, there are spoilers in my post. So if you haven’t seen the films and want to be surprised, you might bypass my comments.
Moon
Moon opens with commercial promising an abundance of energy for almost all people on the planet to enjoy. As it turns out, the moon provides a source of harvestable energy the planet Earth. Cut to Sam Bell, running on a treadmill with his playful, “Wake Me When It’s Quitting Time” t-shirt. As it turns out, it is almost quitting time.
Sam (Sam Rockwell) is at the end of a three-year commitment, and he’s about to wake up. There’s something about working alone for three years (and no live feed from earth), that is about to drive Sam crazy. From the bright white interior of the moonstation, the videos from earth, to the stark blackness outside the moonstation, many of the images in Moon communicate isolation.
His only companion is the moonstation robot, GERTY, who expresses his feelings via a mini-monitor with emoticons. Sam records his work and his mental state on the videocam. He is weary and ready for home. “Three years is too long for this commitment.”
On a routine mission, Sam crashes in the side of a Helium-3 harvester. We join the disorientation of Sam as he awakes in the recovery room and wonder alongside him, “How did he get there?”
Sam begins waking up to the fact that he’s not Sam. We follow Sam as he clambers across the moonstation like a baby learning to walk. He IS a baby learning to walk. He eventually discovers and rescues the other Sam, dying in the crashed moon vehicle. We puzzle alongside him, as he realizes the other Sam looks like him, has his memories and claims to be the real Sam.
The Sams gradually awake to the realization they are but clones of the original Sam, and that many more clones stand ready to replace them after a three-year interval. GERTY assists Sam in this discovery when he learns to ask GERTY the right questions.
The film turns into a beautiful exploration of Blade Runner’s question, “What does it mean to be human?” We watch the two Sam’s struggle with the bitter reality of their predicament, we also witness genuine human compassion and self-sacrifice. Sam Rockwell offers a stunning portrait of inner angst, the human tenacity of struggle for life, companionship and the tenderness between two humans.
Summer Hours
Summer Hours
Unlike the harsh visual contrast throughout Moon, Summer Hours is a visually soft film that captures the organic unity between humans and their creations in the midst of a welcoming landscape of plants and flowers and trees.
Instead of one person and one machine, we are immersed into an extended family of grandmother, children, grandchildren and a housekeeper. The film opens to children playing and running through a lush, green landscape. They are full of life, laughter and play.
Their parents reminisce, toast to life and celebrate the birthday of their mother Helene. They give her three gifts: a Philips cordless phone set, a soft afghan, and the first press of a book featuring the collection of art she has preserved during her life. Helene discusses the art collection with her son Frederic and encourages him to oversee that sale of this collection once she is gone.
After the children and their families leaves, Helene sits looking at her new phone in the twilight. This scene fades out like other key transitions in the film: the light gives way to shadows and then darkness. We since the day is ended for Helene, and it has.
As the light rises on a new, Helene is gone, and the children are deciding the fate of her estate. The film follows the gentle tension between Frederic who wants to preserve the art collection and the estate, and the other two siblings who prefer to sell it.
Life is Transition
While both films differ in style, substance and setting, I think they both explore the challenge of transition or change from different angles. Moon reveals a world that has tried to use clones instead of people to power their moonstation. Yet the clones are always trapped in a three-year interval, and they are exterminated after three-years.
Those who manage the moonstation have tried to create an endless three-year cycle to power their programs. In one sense, Moon is a sci-fi film about using technology to stop or resist change. The clones are expendable.
Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy suggested that when the parent refuses to speak to their child (the new generation) and chooses to preserve only the past, they have become decadent. Decadence always requires the sacrifice of the next generation.
This world has come up with a convenient form of sacrifice: clones. One problem. The clones awake to this dark truth, and like all humans fight to live. But I would suggest that it is not the drive to live that ultimately reveals their humanity.
Both Sams struggle with this threat to their existence. Yet instead of viewing one another as competitors for survival, they discover companionship. They play ping-pong together. They share their duplicates memories with one another. And ultimately both men are willing to sacrifice themselves for the other.
In the end, the older Sam convinces the younger Sam to escape to earth while he sacrifices his dreams and hopes of survival. As the film ends, a reporter’s voice talks about the newly arrived clone on planet earth, and there is a sense that the old Sam has sacrificed his life to change the future.
In this act, he fulfills what Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy suggests is the power of change, the willingness to die/sacrifice to create the future.
While Summer Hours tells a tale about art and family and French culture, it is also telling a tale about change. In the first scene, children are running across the lawn and through different settings. They are in transition.
Virtually ever scene shows the main character going through doors, moving around, walking from inside to outside and so on. The film pulses with constant motion of people as well as the continuous interplay of light and shadows across windows panes and more.
The art collection is divided up, sold to private collectors and museums and given to some French museums (to reduce the tax burden). The art pieces that seemed part of the family background are decontextualized in the museum and sadly seem a bit lifeless.
The family is changing. Two of the siblings, Adrienne and Jeremie have chosen to leave France and building lives in America and Asia. Sylvie, Frederic’s daughter, is transitioning from childhood into adulthood. While Frederic seems a bit wistful, he adjusts to the transitions.
The film is lyrical movement of family and people and even objects in transition. While there is a sense of loss, there is also a sense of hope at the world ahead. In the final scene, Sylvie has a party at the old house before it is sold. Instead of an image of complete teenage debauchery, we see the old house come back to life and people laugh and dance and talk and move all through the house.
The camera follows Sylvie as she wanders through the crowd finding her boyfriend. Soon they are wandering through the fields. She pauses and laments the loss of this house that her grandmother had told her would always be there. Then she and her boyfriend climb over the wall of the estate and playfully run off into the trees.
In both films, the future breaks into the present in unexpected ways. In Summer Hours it is bittersweet, yet playful and lovingly intimate as a family learns to step forward into a new world. In Moon, change means sacrifice and death for one man so that another man could live. Both films continue to play upon my imagination as I think about the pain and joy of stepping into tomorrow.
