Screen Scene

RATING KEY

• Acting
• Cinematography
• Direction
• Editing
• Narrative
• Sound
• Special Effects

When a symbol appears following a title, it implies that the corresponding category is a strength of the movie.

CONTACT
[1997. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. Cast: Jodie Foster, Torn Skerritt, John Hurt. Wamer Bros. 142 mins.]

Strengths (as indicated by the symbols in the article): Acting, Cinematography, Direction, Narrative, and Special Effects

Astronomer Ellie Arroway's ardent belief in intelligent life beyond our parochial sphere is so strong, the sheer force of her conviction carries us along for Hollywood's latest ride through the length of the cosmos. Played with a commensurate post-doctorate charm by Jodie Foster, Arroway's icy impassioned unreasonable zealousness in the face of such equally unreasonable expectations makes Contact seem almost plausible.

If the movie has a single flaw, however, it's that there's a studious intellectual seriousness to the whole proceeding that undercuts the story's potential charm. Standing tall with the good guy aliens - alongside such worthy company as Robert Wise's monumental The Day the Earth Stood Still; and Steven Spielberg's cheery duo of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ET: The Extra-Terrestrial - Contact is ultimately and ironically as nearly humanly clueless as any upbeat sci-fi film could possibly be.

A large part of this shortcoming results from director Robert Zemeckis' unwieldy attempt to out-metaphysicalize Stanley Kubrick's towering cinematic 2001: A Space Odyssey. For both films end with an inconclusiveness that's supposed to leave us in rapturous awe. But Kubrick was also smart enough to get out of town after cutting straight to the chase. Zemeckis, by contrast, insists upon reminding us for an extra quarter-hour of how lonesome the universe is and how awesome the potential for extra-terrestrial existence would be for our future.

After an idyllic introduction meant to show us how the tiny Ellie got to be the hard-driven astronomer she has become - namely captivated professionally and personally by the joys of radio astronomy - Contact settles into a protracted battle of wills between Arroway and her former astronomical supervisor, David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt). Being a Presidential scientific advisor has its definite privileges and Drumlin has the upper hand until Arroway almost casually trips over a message from the star Vegas while fine-tuning through the universe's cosmic radiation background on a rare night off the job.

This otherworldly microwave radio emission convinces Arroway she's dialed into the astronomers' holy grail and she unsteadily basks in this glory until Drumlin hogs the publicity to the chagrin of eccentric multi-billionaire S. R. Hadden (John Hurt) who has funded Arroway's project after Drumlin had the American government pull her telescopic plug.

One fantastic discovery leads to another when the message is found to be transmitting a series of prime numbers which in turn mutate into the blueprint for a space vehicle and loft mechanism when manipulated by multidimensional computer graphics. Two space capsules - one governmentally funded and another secret privately funded project - set mankind up for the ultimate tour of the galaxy.

Hurtling along at near-warp speed, Contact traces the efforts of scientists worldwide to grapple with the implications of this startling alien communication. And for the most part, Zemeckis and screenwriters James V. Hart and Michael Goldenberg manage to get their narrative points across with a minimal amount of mind-stretching jargon. But the philosophy and cosmology fly by swiftly and a certain amount of incredulous scientific exploration gets fudged along the way.

It makes no difference. What makes Contact noteworthy is Foster's gradual metamorphosis from a single-minded nerd to a totally bewildered heroine whose close encounter of a nth-dimensional kind transforms her life with a private understanding that's close to a mystical religious epiphany.

Whether aliens do or do not exist is left pending in everyone else's (including the audience's) mind. Yet Ellie Arroway's enigmatic brush with her extra-terrestrial state of grace leaves her - and us - wiser to the ways of whatever the macrocosm really is...and who may be out there to someday greet us. Contact, in its humbler-than-2001; A Space Odyssey-fashion, is quite nearly as awe inspiring.

BREAKING THE WAVES
[1996. Directed by Lars Von Trier. Cast: Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgard, Katrin Cartlidge. October Films/Evergreen Entertainment. 158 mins.]

Strengths (as indicated by the symbols in the article): Acting, Cinematography, Direction, and Narrative.

Lars Von Trier's Breaking the Waves explores the mystery of God's love through the sacrifice of a scarcely sane woman for her invalid husband.

As visually exacting as the devotion Bess (Emily Watson) musters for her boundless faith, Von Trier's oddly austere masterwork explores her progressive psychological disintegration with a relentlessly precise pathos. Cinematographer Robby Muller's nervous camerawork complements Watson's conscience-racked performance as a near-hysterical Scottish girl who in grabbing at life's sensuousness (with the same desperation as a sinking swimmer grabbing for a distant life buoy) is torn between her love for her husband (who represents her physical life) and her equally strong-held commitment to God's love (which represents her spiritual life).

Married to boisterous Jan (Stellan Skargard), an oil rig worker from outside her community, Bess faces the visible disapproval of the patriarchs of her North-West Scot village. And supported only tacitly by her mother (Sandra Voe) and her widowed best friend, Dodo (Katrin Cartlidge), Bess innocently flaunts herself before her close-knit Presbyterian elders.

Privately beset by doubts of worth, she engages in a seemingly schizophrenic private monologue with God in the town's church. Her life is turned upside down when she tearfully pleads for the premature return of her husband from his job and he is indeed returned after an accident leaves him paralyzed from the neck down.

Convinced that she is the cause for his impairment, Bess seeks further counsel from God and she becomes convinced that she must share - and ultimately bear - the trauma of his injury . Thus when Jan asks her to have relations with other men and tell him about her experiences, Bess tries her best to comply believing that only by obeying can she forestall his death and make him well again.

Like a latter-day Job, however, she finds the uncomprehending censure of her family and fellow townsmen almost more than she can handle, and in one single-minded effort to bring her beloved Jan back to health, she risks her body and soul in one final misadventure that cruelly tests her faith.

The quasi-naturalistic camerawork of Breaking the Waves stands in stark contrast to the stylish half-tones of Von Trier's earlier masterwork, Zentropa. Where that earlier film abandoned its characters to its quirky film noir post-World War II conundrums, this film's clearly photographed images contradict the story's incipient mysticism. For Breaking the Wave's straining at love and sacrifice only come at the loss of Bess' whole being.

Nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as the young Bess, first-time actress Emily Watson allows us to feel the almost incoherent depths of her character's inner-most yearnings and confusions. Passion, as seen through Watson's luminous eyes, reveals the unexpected grief and joy of a devoted wife who may or may not be psychologically coherent - indeed, may or may not be able to save her husband's life - and, who, finally, may or may not be completely insane.

What is not insane is the deliberation with which she places herself in God's hands - and harms way - to save her beloved Jan. And it's this constant straining between self-interest and self-sacrifice that makes Watson's performance as memorably resonant as the cacophony of soulful bells that mournfully peel in her tragic wake.