Is there a love on Mars that doesn’t exist? Everything that we call real consists of things that cannot be regarded as real. Niels Bohr
While Mrtin Villeneuve’s older brother, Denis, was inflating his sham “Fires” and slowly trampling his path to Hollywood, remembering his greedy sprouts into the loose ground of his talent, the younger one scraped up some money and put a very outstanding futuristic (pseudo)philosophical drama in his homeland. It is only a pity that in the shadow of “Arrival” on our sinful huge alien ship and in the nervous crunch of popcorn, coming from under the feet of those running for the premiere of “The Runner”, about Martin’s film few people remember. What's the pity? Martin didn't learn how to make a commercial movie from his brother, and that's great! Must something to satisfy their intellectual hunger such poor movie fans as me.
And the food from Martin Villeneuve and Robert Lepage turned out to be famous. Not a masterpiece, however, but a fastidious movie gourmet clearly has something to eat: a fresh plot, packaged in a natural futuristic shell, stuffed in equal proportion with serious and farcical maxims of the characters, deftly immersed in the body of drama, fueled by good music, and finally beautifully served, leaves a long pleasant aftertaste and contributes to the wiggle of what modern man turns into a rudimentary organ and will soon be replaced by a hologram (like the head of Mr. Spaak in the film). I will try to understand the ingredients of this dish.
I'll start with the wrapper. Futuristic design is shown to the viewer with good taste: without arrogance, with signs of their own imagination, sustained in style in various locations. Fantastic details are not accentuated and are not concentrated in one corner; they are scattered throughout the picture, but are served so as not to dominate the futuristic ones themselves, and in the drawing of both of them there is often a slight mischief of the authors.
The musical series of the film is very successful: “space jazz” is initially tied to the action, which makes it seem that they composed it not for the film, but in the film itself. What kind of instruments do they use? Design envy and Shemyakin, and would produce such “sexophones” (or “erotophons”) today, Maestro Goloshchekin would clearly order a couple for his Philharmonic, and at the same time would invite Maestro Obya on tour.
But the most delicious is behind the successful scenery. The director does not let the sophisticated viewer get bored and now and then provokes his consciousness with a mixture of very interesting statements: from completely abstract, like the fact that “alcohol and dreams do not mix” to one of the most polemical in the philosophy of human consciousness: “our consciousness creates reality” – which not only voices, but also immediately demonstrates Spaak in one of the episodes with “holographic gastronomy”. This scene is perceived as a grotesque illustration of the voiced philosophical assumption, but in this film Villeneuve Jr. managed to unusually naturally combine the grotesque and purely philosophical details of the plot.
In general, the idea of the decisive role of consciousness in the existence of matter in the picture is repeated repeatedly. But if the planet Mars in reality does not exist can only be in the head of the headless Spaak (that is, maybe it, the planet, exists only in your consciousness), then the power of true love can definitely send not only your consciousness, but also your body to any planet, and if such a celestial body does not exist, then create it. Otherwise, reversing the “anthropic principle” defined above, we can formulate the following maxim: without love there is no matter. You got too much? Without love there will be no matter (and never would be).
All of the above is not all the interesting things you can find in Mars and April: there are many, many more amazing and interesting things, including things that I may not have noticed at all. So if you have already discussed with friends all the (non-)interests of “Arrival” and went to “Runner”, do not be lazy at leisure to get acquainted with the work of your (un)favorite director’s younger brother: I hope you will not be disappointed.
And may the fans of Lepage’s work forgive me, but, right, it is good that at one time he refused to direct this film, and remained only his ghostly co-author, at the same time playing an interesting semi-ghost (semi-holographic) role here: “gravity” in the world he built would surely be greater than this parameter in the picture of Martin, who succeeded with Martian ease (F on Mars is 2.5 times smaller than Earth).