Awful waste of space?

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (Documentary; 1980)
Creator, Presenter: Carl Sagan


It all probably started over 13 billion years ago. A mammoth explosion which sent energy expanding across the universe gave light and mass. This expansion of space after the blast, by all accounts, is likely to be still ongoing as seen by the Doppler effect visible in the telescopic visualisation of distant stars. In cosmic terms, time probably started at that juncture. Then there was nothing for a very long time. Slowly with the cooling of the system, galaxies and stars came around. The earlier stars had short shelf lives. Their burning out of hydrogen fuels gave rise to other heavier atoms and supernovas that became the seed of our existence.

With carbon and oxygen came the blueprint of existence, water. By trial, chance and selection, the seed of life began. Slowly unicellular, then multicellular and complex creatures formed. DNA was found by Nature for continuity of life. With time a primitive reptilian brain evolved. As reptilian started becoming land creatures, some species developed more complex brain and a conscience.

These species of creatures turned out to be the most successful of nature's creations. They started exploring beyond their backyards. Some, however, refuse to use their new found neo-frontal cortex for the betterment of all of the universal's accidents but instead feel contented to let their actions be dictated by the primitive reptilian brain.

Carl Sagan

They refuse to see their short-sighted view of instant short-term gratification. They fail to look at the fate that may befall them when deadly nuclear arsenals are hurled at each other. The uninhabitable nature of our neighbouring planets in the solar system should forewarn our leaders of the future that awaits us.

For times immemorial, people have shunned from knowledge, critical thinking and use of science to learn about ourselves. Again and again, the wealth of knowledge and scientific discoveries have been destroyed in the name of nonsensical belief and in the haste of wanting to enrich themselves and usurping power. Events in Alexandria and Nalanda are the testimony of these atrocities.

We, as human beings, do not indeed have the higher intelligence to live together in harmony with possible other life forms in the Universe. Talking about the possibility of finding another lifeform in the Cosmos, it appears like a Herculean task. We are however making strides towards this end. Multiple probes and spacecraft are apparently showing positive signs, according to scientists. We are working towards 'contact', not now, but perhaps for generations to come. The Universe is, after all, hell of a big space. 

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Into the kaleidoscopic maze of life....

Blind Chance (Polish: Przypadek) 1987(release)

I suppose, in conjunction with the Euro 2012 finals co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine, it is only proper to review a Polish film. Actually, it the movie upon which 'Sliding Doors' (which I discussed earlier) is based on.

Even with excellent subtitles, the first half-hour of the film just whisks by without giving a clue what was going on! Characters were coming and going leaving us wondering what was actually going on.

The story starts with Witek screaming on top of his lungs. In the next scene, bodies of dead people are dragged by doctors and attendants along a hospital corridor, leaving a trail of blood along the way. Then it goes to the time when Witek was a child, and his friend Daniel moves to Denmark. And a young Witek with a girlfriend. A cadaver is dissected in full view of the audience stirring up a medical student who could not stomach the gore. Then we see Witek, a 4th-year medical student, coaxing her, who actually fancies him. Witek's father dies, and Witek, who was doing medicine to fulfil his father's wish, takes a break to reflect on his future. He runs to catch a train, and that is when the real story starts.
While rushing to buy a train ticket, he collides into an elderly lady who drops a coin. The coin is picked by a vagabond who buys a beer. When the drunk savours his excellent fortune and beer, a hasty Witek knocks the drinker and barely made it to the back of the leaving train. He befriends a middle-aged man, Werner, and follows him home. This man is involved in the Communist party movements and probably just out of prison. Witek is coaxed to continue the work that he had failed.
Witek meets his first flame. He also comes to meet a government Minister, Adam, who takes him under his wings.

He is sent to rescue some health personnel who were held hostage by a group of junkies. After successfully saving the day, he is lured into the party's ideology.
He discovers that his first love had been tortured and is now working with an anti-Government group. We also find that Witek had a stillborn twin and his mother died during childbirth. He must have been born during a national disaster. That was the scene shown at the beginning of the film.
Witek's boss, Adam, gets Czuszka arrested for illegal activities. Thinking that Witek snitched on her, she leaves. Witek assaults Adam and tries to flee his country to France but is frustrated that his passport had been withheld. And he screams.....

Next, the scene moves to where Witek runs to catch his train. The same view but this time he knocks the vagabond's beer costing him valuable milliseconds that made him miss his train. He assaults a railway officer who prevents him from running after a speeding train. Witek is incarcerated with community service.

There he meets Marek, a fellow detainee. Marek introduces him to a priest who in turn passes him some money to be given to a death-defying lady who is harassed by the members of the Workers' Party. During one of the anti-Communist meetings that he held in his apartment, Witek bumps into his old childhood friend, Daniel and his sister Werke. Witek wants to be baptised. He tries to go to France, but his visa is given only he informs the authorities on anti-Communist members.

In the third option, Witek misses the train but is not apprehended by the rail guard but waiting at the railway station is his medical school girlfriend, Olga. He returns to med school to complete his training. He marries his girlfriend and is offered to pursue a Ph D in his university. The Dean's son is arrested, and Witek has to replace his boss for a conference in Libya. The plane that he boards via France burst into flames during lift-off! Zakończyć (End, Fin)

It is a somewhat abstractly tricky movie to watch, I had to view it twice to understand what in heaven's name was going on. As the shooting is mostly indoors, one does not get the opportunity to see the landscape of Poland in 1981 (it took 6 years to release due to bureaucratic red tape), Eurozone's one of the poorer cousins. It was shot at a time when the Berlin Wall, Kremlin and the Iron Curtain was about to crumble down giving a knock on Communism ideology leading to its demise and opening the floodgates of economic reforms and globalisation. The purpose of making this film is to express the director's anti-Communist sentiments and to ridicule people's preoccupation with psychoanalysis.