“Be afraid. Be very afraid.”*

The Fly (1986)

Directed: David Cronenberg

https://realgroovy.co.nz/product/9337369011202/the-fly-
1986-dvd-digitally-remastered-special-edition

It is reminiscent of the big hair days of the 80s, when being hirsute was fashionable and everyone had broad shoulders thanks to shoulder pads under their tops. It was also set to be a fantastic period for romcoms. Almost immediately after this film, we saw a series of classic romantic comedies, with 'When Harry Met Sally' (1989) and 'Sleepless in Seattle' (1993) as frequently cited examples. The timeless sitcom 'Friends' (1994 onwards) likely originated from a similar concept, blending awkward moments with romance to become a coming-of-age reference for 90s kids as they transitioned into adulthood. 

The movie must have escaped my notice when it first arrived in our country. It was that period of my life when I was isolated from civilisation and focused on building something of my own.

People have long been captivated by the idea of time travel. The notion of time travel and time dilation even sparked the curiosity of ancient India. In Hindu Puranas, written nearly 2,400 years ago, there is a story of King Kakudmi who could not find a suitable suitor for his talented daughter, Revathi. The king journeyed to Brahmalok (Brahma's realm) to seek an audience with him and request an appropriate husband. While travelling to Brahma's realm, 117 million years passed, and all the suitors they had in mind had died. Humans also changed in appearance over time. Nevertheless, Revathi returned to Earth to marry Krishna's brother, Balarama. Since Revathi and Balarama belonged to different eras, they looked physically different. Revathi was said to be taller and more robust than Balarama.

Some may argue that not enough credence was given to these imaginary stories, but the fact remains that they were aware of time travel and time dilation. That merits further exploration. Teleportation is a form of time travel. For it to occur, extreme gravitational manipulation—possibly through wormholes—is necessary. The subject will need to be transferred via quantum entanglement at the speed of light. All of these concepts are still theoretical. 

The film 'Fly' depicts the story of an eccentric scientist experimenting with teleportation. His love interest is a journalist who documents his progress. During a moment of weakness, the scientist teleports himself. Unfortunately, a fly accidentally enters his telepod chamber. The teleportation succeeds, but the scientist's DNA and the fly's DNA become mixed. Initially, the scientist feels energetic and powerful. Over time, he begins to degenerate, losing his limbs one by one and transforming into a gruesome hybrid monster. 

The film also depicts how the lovers manage the drastic changes in their relationship, and things become even more complicated when the journalist becomes pregnant. She has to deal with a potentially deformed baby, as his gamete must also be a hybrid. 

Although the story is predictable, it still manages to captivate viewers with its graphic content and impressive makeup effects. Is this accident a warning about playing God, or is it part of the learning process? Society must establish its rules as scientists delve deeper into cellular biology and cloning, and the twisting of genetic material becomes mainstream. Playing God may have its consequences.

* "Be afraid. Be very afraid." is a renowned line from the film The Fly, spoken by the character played by Geena Davis as she observes the horrifying transformation of the scientist (Jeff Goldblum) into a grotesque insect-like creature. The line has become iconic, frequently used to convey overwhelming fear and dread.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Can't change everything!

About Time

Director: Richard Curtis

You start life telling yourselves you must try to make everything perfect. You think and overthink where anything can go wrong anywhere and make precautionary changes. Still, there will be some black swan events beyond your control that you must overcome. What would you think at the end of it all, at the end of days, that you would have it any better? 

What if you have a special gift where you can time travel? Would your life then be perfect, with the ability to travel back and forth to twit events and prevent mishaps when deemed fit?

A millionaire who has made millions would dispense unsolicited advice that earning money is not everything. He will say that one has to enjoy life with all its spills and thrills, not go after money at all costs. Of course, all these make no sense to a struggling youngster working hard to make something out of his life. In the youngster's mind, he needs the blessings of the Monkey God, not life lessons. 

The same thing applies to time travel, I suppose. At one look, it looks like something to die for. But then, everything loses its glamour. Suddenly one realises the uncertainty of life is the one that makes life worth living. Nothing can happen in isolation and has a corresponding spillover effect. As we learn more about time travel, we realise it has many caveats. 

This romcom is a light viewing, not for sci-fi enthusiasts familiar with the intricacies of going back and forth in time. A 21-year-old is told the males in the family can time travel. Initially taking it as a prank, he uses it to correct certain awkward moments and later major family mishaps. During one of his travels, he discovers that it is restricted to a family member's birth as the randomness of the gametes of conception may alter the baby altogether, including its gender. Not all life events have a single moment at their inception. It takes a lifetime to materialise. Often it is multifactorial, for example, the aetiology of a fatal event.

Life is a funny thing. Things can work in your favour or against you. You are not in the driving seat. 35 years ago today, I reported for work. What would I have done then that would have landed me in a better situation than I am today? Or would the alternative have been worse? The version I have today may have been the version of what I could my life to be. Like someone told me, life is like the branches of a tree. If an ant were to start from the tree's stem, it is pure luck that, after taking so many turns at the crossroad of tree branches, it reaches the tree's juiciest fruit. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Complications when the dead returns!

Manifest (Seasons 1-3; 2018 - 2021)

What happens when a flight disappears from the radar one day and lands at its destination some five and a half years later? A whole lot of questions naturally crops up. Tonnes of conspiracy theories spring from nothing, and the governmental agencies will jump into action trying to put a plausible validation to the whole speculation. The most unsettling part of the entire fiasco would be the relatives, who, after months if not years of trying to get over the presumed death of their loved one and putting their past behind. Imagine trying to place them back in their new lives!

The puzzling (maybe not if one understands time travel) is that the plane passengers did not age a day older, even five years later, further complicating the hullabaloo. One twin was stuck as a preteen in this miniseries, while the other blossomed into the hormone-raged teenager. On a happy note, the preteen was sick with cancer when he started, but afterwards, he had five years of medical advancement to fight cancer.

This addictive miniseries tries to explain the sudden disappearance of a commercial flight from Jamaica to New York. As the passenger are all connected with flashes of vision that coax them, especially the protagonist, Michaela Stone; an NYPD cop, her brother, a mathematics professor; his son and occasionally others as well, they try to prevent wrongdoings. Hot on their trails is NSA and the US Army to exploit their powers. 

After three seasons on NBC, its popularity waned, but it started a cult following after screening on Netflix. Works on the fourth season are in progress.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

He who controls timeline, controls the Universe.

 Loki (Season1, E1-E6; 2021)
Marvel Cinematic Universe

When Loki was apprehended and transported after Avengers: Endgame, in the confusion of Hulk creating a tantrum for needing to use the stairs and Iron Man faking a heart attack, Loki escapes captivity through a Tesseract and enter a different realm. He lands in the headquarters of Time Variance Authority (TVA). 

Here, the narcissistic Norse God of Mischief Loki learns of variants of himself floating in the multiple timelines creating havoc. The Time-Keepers had set a Scared Timeline for events to happen, but somehow variants have made branches from the main timeline. The TVA's job is to ensure that the correct path of the Sacred Timeline is followed. Some of the variants are evil alter-egos and are hellbent on creating chaos. As he is charged against the 'Sacred Timeline', Loki's plea bargain is to hunt down another Loki variant who had killed TVA officers and stolen the time resetting devices.

Time, as we perceive, is a one-way single linear motion. In reality, it is a composite of multiple minor diversions which, from someone from a different dimension, sees it as one, much like we see a slithering snake past us by part by part in a twisting motion but on a straight path, with the present, past and future.

Since a Sacred Timeline is being followed, does it not mean that the characters in the timeline have no free will but have their path determined? No amount of willpower can change anything if everything is predetermined. If the variants have a free hand in doing things, then the whole balance would collapse. 

That brings us to the philosophical dilemma about battles and battleships in the context of free will and determinism. Who decides whether the war starts tomorrow? If it is predetermined that there is a battle tomorrow, what is the commander's decision-making role? If he chose not to go to war, is it his decision, or can we say that not having a battle was predetermined?

Loki and alter ego

Loki soon discovers a few disturbing revelations. The Time Keepers are mere androids but are controlled by someone else.

The rogue variant of himself that Loki was hunting for turned out to be a female, Sylvie. This must be a comforting story plot for those who look at gender as something quite fluid, yoyoing from one end to another and changing with time. The thing that takes the cake is that Loki, the narcissist, is so in love that he develops feelings for Sylvie! What do you call that? Love thyself?

TVA itself, the Lokis realised, is made up of variants. It turned out that it is not an authority to kerb variants after all. The need to find the real person who controls TVA becomes a necessity. This leads them to a new villain comparable to Thanos, 'He who remains' who is created in the mould of Kang the Conqueror.

The tenet of the storyline, which we will learn, is that branches from the Timeline would create variants. Some of them are evil and may overpower another variant on another timeline and exert their authority on the turn of subsequent events. It gets more complicated than in the final finale. A decision has to be made at the Citadel at the End of Time - whether 'He who remains' is the good variant trying to bring stability to the timeline or not. 

A wrong move... and a segue to the next season and the opening of a bag of worms where the evil 'He-who-remains' takes control of TVA, as Loki soon discovers...

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Of time, space and life...

Tenet (2020)

This is another movie in which one may go in and come out of the theatre asking, "what was that all about?" It is about time travel and would make sense if one has a little background about time, space and bending time. Viewers of Interstellar should be at a better place understanding the flow and the plot of the story. They would not find it too confusing.

Time and space have fascinated man since the beginning from the Hindu tradition to the Greeks right down to modern thinkers. Time is just an arbitrary human construct to keep track of earth's rotation around the sun as to plan seasonal preparation of agricultural activities. It went on to permeate all over our day to day activities. Our mass occupies space and seems to move together with time. Somewhere interspersed in all these is life. And it is all moving forward in an ever-expanding universe, or is it?

In an alternative universe, time could be moving backwards as seen here in Tenet, the movie. A palindrome in its title (and some of the characters) suggests that events in life can be altered by moving forward or backwards as and when the situation warrants. In this film, Armageddon is averted when the Protagonist travels through time to get hold of an algorithm that can potentially destroy the world. 

This is a cerebral offering for those who are looking for something beyond poetic justice and lovey-dovey display tear-inducing display of emotion pathognomonic of Tinseltown. 

(P.S. A curious mind would still be puzzled. If an alternate universe where everything moves backwards and the Protagonist had to don an oxygen mask as even respiration is reversed, wouldn't all bodily functions be changed? Heart sucking blood into the heart, bile fluids retrograde into the liver parenchyma and reverse peristalsis in the human body just like the bullet being sucked back into the pistol barrel!)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International 

Georgetown, Pride of Penang.

An MGM presentation.

James . Fitzpatrick's Travel Talk

The Voice of the Globe. (the 1930s)

Talking to ghost?

Source Code (2011)
Director: Duncan Jones

When you switch off a filament lamp, the light just does not go off just like that. There is a temporary time before the brightness disappears. Even life is that. If somehow we can get into the dimension when two people die, one life can mathematically be calculated to get the others and can be made to turn the tide of events. This bizarre time travel where scientists can communicate through a digital interphase to save the world is the theme of this movie.

Capt Colter Steven finds himself trapped in the body of a school teacher and on a train where a time bomb is about to be detonated. Through repeatedly moving to and fro between his old self and new, and communication through his computer, the Afghan-missioned army helicopter pilot is actually dead but is sent on a secret mission to find the culprit behind a train attack so as to avert other future attacks.

His mission was just to locate the information about the perpetrators and pass it to the people in the real world. What he was actually doing is that he is going to an alternate universe to retrieve useful information. What he actually does in this universe, he is told, would not have effects in the real world. If he communicated with his father, his father would not know in real life. If he managed to avert the train blast in the other world, it would still happen! At least that is what he are made to realise...

An interesting watch in the line of Groundhog Day.

Love fulfilled by time travel!

Somewhere in Time (1980)


In the Hindu Puranas, stories were told of people completing various lifeforms (karma cycles) through dreams. Through this process, kings change roles to become slaves or animals and endure punishment or pleasure.

Time travel films usually deploy complicated devices to get their characters move through timelines. Surprisingly, in this purely romantic drama, it is made simple. Self-hypnosis in the presence of ancient artefacts is suggested as the way transport one back to the past.

Christopher Reeve (known for his role as Superman) plays the role of a playwriter, Richard Coulier. At a time when he gets a writer's block, he drives around aimlessly and ends up staying in a grand old hotel. He is drawn into the intriguing world of time travel after being fascinated with a portrait of a stage actress (the Queen of mini-series of the 80s, Jane Seymour as Miss Elise McKenna). He remembers receiving an old pocket watch 8 years previously from a mysterious lady whom he later found to be Ms McKenna herself, through his investigations.

After consulting a professor about time travel through hypnosis, Coullier transports himself back to 1912. He falls in love with Ms McKenna who is tightly guarded like a hawk by her manager, Robinson (Christopher Plummet, from Sound of Music). This love bubble burst when Coullier accidentally draws a 1979 coin from his coat pocket!

It is sad to see the hunk of Christopher Reeve ambulant. As we remember, he spent his later part of his life as a quadriplegic after sustaining a neck fracture following a horse riding accident. All the stem cell research and campaigns that he helped to be made aware, did not help him to recover. Sad.

N.B. The original Jane Seymour was King Henry the VIII's third wife whom he courted soon after his court passed the death sentence on his second wife, Queen Anne Boleyn, for conspiracy and infidelity. Queen Jane Seymour provided the only male heir but she died after childbirth. The offspring later ascended the throne as King Edward VI.

I am my own grandpa!

Predestination (2014)



 Are we fatalistic when we say that life is predetermined? No matter how we try to change it, it would somehow end with an outcome that may not be favourable to us. Is there a reason why the word 'fate' and 'fatal' has the same root word? How much free will do we hold?

I am surprised that I never actually heard about this movie before watching it. It is an outlandish movie about time travel, a beautiful hermaphrodite, self-impregnation and changing history! It may sound a bit like the 'Back to the Future' series, but this one is darker. It is pretty confusing as the characters move in and out of timelines.

In the beginning, a man tries to defuse a bomb but sustains facial burn injuries. He is treated in a hospital and has extensive skin grafting or perhaps a facial transplant. In the next scene, this man is now attending to a customer in a bar and starts a conversation with him. A nihilistic man tells him tall tales about being a trash magazine writer who was born a female. At that juncture, you think, okay, she changed her biological sex. But no! 'She' grew up in an orphanage as Jane, a lonely, nerdy and sad child. After an unsuccessful stint at a space recruitment project, she meets a 'guy' who disappeared after getting her pregnant.

Complications during delivery need surgical intervention. She loses her uterus, and the doctors discover functional male internal organs. Somebody steals her baby, and she is all alone again. After a series of gender reassignment surgeries, Jane became John. John eventually becomes a writer with hatred hanging over her mind with the man who got her into this mess of pregnancy and life-changing experiences! This takes almost half of the story. You start wondering. Is this some kind of trashy pulp fiction story where the sky is the limit; anything goes! Then it gets interesting...

The barkeeper takes John to the cellar to show a violin case which is actually a time machine for him to go back in time to avenge the boyfriend who got her into her predicament. What do you know? When John goes back in time (with the barkeeper), John is indeed the boyfriend to Jane! In other words, John impregnants Jane at a different time and begets a child.

It is an intricate weave of a story to alter history to protect the lives of many who perished in a terror attack in 1975. The barkeeper, John, Jane and even the bomber eventually turned out to be the same in the end. It needs a lot of mind-bending and science to understand this exciting concept. The story moves between 1975 to 1970 to 1963 to 1992 to 1981 to 1970...

The characters are supposed to be part of a secret organisation with a time travel device to put the world in order, avert danger and save lives. They come to realise that nobody is affected by what we do, mishaps may occur in other ways as the effect of our actions or inactions. We can stop one event, but the impact of that action can start another domino effect of another and another. They can never truly be 'Peace on Earth'.  One of the side effects of this travel, however, is psychosis. This derangement is the one that pushed the barkeeper to be a terrorist as he thought that action would prevent other catastrophes that were destined to occur in the future.

Need to check on the grandfather paradox, predestination paradox and causal loop in the context of time travel.

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.