If the definition of sci-fi is to rely on a grand world view, various impossible settings and gorgeous special effects to achieve the effect of dazzling people, then this "The Man From Earth" and its sequel "Honolucent" must be counted. Not a proper sci-fi movie.
Both films revolve around an ordinary man who has lived for more than 14,000 years, constantly changing his identity and participating in many historical events, but always keeping the name of John. He moves every ten years in an effort to keep himself from being recognized. In the first part, before he left, he had a fireside night chat with his friends, hoping to be understood. Facing the incredible disbelief of everyone, he could only end in a bleak situation. In the second part, the exposure of his identity brought him an even greater crisis...
religious fragments
Both have strong religious connotations. The narrative style of the first is reminiscent of a scene in Boccaccio's "Decameron" during the Renaissance , when 10 men and women were sheltering from the plague in a villa in the countryside, telling stories when they were bored, aimed at criticizing The Catholic Church, mocking the Church for teaching darkness and sin. This time, it was a group of college professors from various disciplines sitting around the fire, listening to John recount his bizarre experiences and constantly questioning them. Even though John's experience was bizarre, and as far as the content of their discussion was concerned, it was mainly religious content, which seemed to be another blow to religion.
In the second "Holocene", this trend is even more obvious. Just as Marx said: "I am not a Marxist" , John, who played the role of Jesus in history, confessed that he was not a Christian in the face of lost believers. If it is said that during the Reformation, people abandoned the church as the authority to interpret the Bible and established " justification by faith" which relies on believing in the Bible to directly believe in God . John, then, completely rejects this belief from the biblical text, or even in God himself, and instead advocates ideological agreement with it. He said "there is another way", as long as you do the right thing, you can even believe in Buddha, believe in Muhammad. And this is contrary to Christianity.
Philosophical Fragments
I've seen someone say this is an existential movie before, discussing people's search for the meaning of existence in a long time, and in fact, John's mouth is indeed used in the story to say this sentence. But what John said wasn't inspiring, so at best John just lived a little longer than the others.
Existence is never simply being, but being with others. It is also meaningless for the individual to be isolated from the world alone. The longer a person lives, the more empty life becomes for him, and the more he discovers that the world is inherently absurd. John just got near-eternal life by chance. God didn't give him the meaning of living longer than others, just like God didn't give people the meaning of existence. He and people exist in this world by chance. s difference.
It also reminded me of Plato's cave metaphor in Book VII of the Republic, the tragic end of the prisoner who broke free of his chains and returned to the cave after seeing the sun. Although he realizes the truth of the world, if he returns to the cave and tells the prisoners the truth, he will only be regarded as a lunatic, a heretic, and even killed by a blind crowd. What's interesting is that the male protagonist of this film is a primitive man living in a cave, and the title "Man from Earth" also seems to contain the meaning of Cave Man. As a man who knows many truths and possesses the most wisdom on the planet, John is not only not getting the respect he deserves, but also faces all kinds of dangerous situations.
Wittgenstein once said in his earlier work "On the Philosophy of Logic": "What cannot be said should be silent." Although his original intention was to express the boundaries of language, in the film, John's words do bring Here comes the tragic result of a breakdown of faith. Those who put their meaning to God end up weeping and facing the predicament of losing the meaning of life. Even his son, unable to accept the stimulation of his father still alive, died of a heart attack.
When John had no choice but to lie at the end of the first book and say, "It's all just a novel," I think he learned the importance of being silent. In the second part, John was even kidnapped by believers because of the exposure of his identity, and his life was almost lost.
In addition, a concept proposed in the film is: falsifiability . This was proposed by the philosopher of science Popper and refers to the possibility that a conclusion (explanation, prediction) derived from a theory has the potential to conflict or contradict one or a group of observational statements logically or in principle. That is to say, "All scientific propositions must be falsifiable, and unfalsifiable theories cannot be scientific theories." And when John told his story, none of the professors and friends around him could falsify his words. Because what he said, as long as it is consistent with history, it cannot be falsified or verified by everyday experience, because it is not science at all.
And the film itself seems to be a questioning of technology, thematically concerned with the gray area between science and pure fiction, philosophical and religious issues. In the second part, this anti-tech tendency is even more obvious, because of the deterioration of the environment, John's resilience begins to decline. Under the ubiquitous cameras, it became increasingly difficult for him to hide, and he finally had to return to the wild. As far as the form of expression is concerned, the whole film does not have the inherent routines of traditional sci-fi films such as "laser plus metal", but is only promoted in the form of simple dialogue and narrative. If the first part is like a drama, then in comparison, the second part adds more plots than the first part, but to a certain extent, it dispels the implicit philosophical rationale, but it also highlights the religious contradiction.
Collectively, these religious and philosophical fragments make the series a less hard soft sci-fi. Of course, at the same time, this film is also a small-budget independent film of only $10,000, and even at the end of the second film, the director has to come forward to crowdfund. Just like Han Han's evaluation of the first film in this series: "This is a classic sci-fi film. If you don't consider the picture quality, you can shoot it with an iPhone and a sofa. Night Talk is worth buying a disc to watch, as long as you're not the kind of person who wants to watch a movie and wonder why Optimus Prime doesn't need to add oil, I'm sure you'll like it."
Overall, I personally think this is a movie that has been overrated by fans for its shooting style, but there is still something to watch. Therefore, the first part is worth watching, but the second part is a little redundant. According to the director, there will be movies and TV series in the follow-up, so you can wait and see.
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