"The web of time that moves closer, diverges, intersects or never interferes with each other embraces all possibilities".
This is an American drama about time, parallel universes, family, death, love, and self.
"Girls Through Time and Space"
Little Loretta's mother disappears after a science experiment, and she travels through time and space in search of her mother to appear before her future self. Loretta, who is married, tells little Loretta the reason why her mother left and they can't understand later, not everything in life has meaning. Sanmao wrote in "Wandering Through Thousands of Rivers and Thousands of Mountains": "I believe in the will of God, nothing happens in this world by chance, and one day there will be an explanation for everything."
But I don't think so. The answer may not exist, life is a too hasty experience.
"your name"
Jakob and Danny unexpectedly switch roles. Both bodies have new souls.
Can the spirit and the flesh be discussed separately? I think the answer is here. Jakob changed into Danny and returned to Danny's house feeling overwhelmed by the toothbrush. Your body is just the skin.
Next is Danny taking Jakob's body home and telling his parents what he plans to do after graduation. Jakob said he wanted to be a painter instead of working in a "ring". At this point Danny's answer was the exact opposite - wanted to work in "ring" and wouldn't draw anymore. Parents are happy for his decision. Just like the attitude of parents towards their daughters in "Silent Confession". More often than not, parents are more concerned with one outcome—whether we are on the right track as they think they are—than their children’s inner thoughts and sudden shifts in thought. It's thought-provoking whether we're unknowingly doing the same to the people we care about—to aging parents, future children.
"The Day the Earth Stood Still"
Lamenting that beauty is always fleeting, and a teenage girl who yearns for eternity stumbles upon a machine that stops time.
"That moment, that feeling of excitement and wonder, why is it so fleeting? Even though you know it was very special at the time, it's still going to end, why can't it last forever as we would like it to?" "Sometimes things are very Especially because they don't last."
The beauty of a thing lies in its inevitable passing. The most common things, and one more deadline, will become more precious. Often less is more.
"Story of Your Life"
There are two details of this story that struck me the most. Grandpa always whistles in response to grandma after whistling. Grandpa is always fixing broken toilets.
Then one day he left. The toilet was broken again, the grandmother told her son. The son said he would find someone to fix it.
The grandmother returned to the empty room and whistled. The thin back was drowned in infinite silence. What was she thinking at this time? What I think of is - companionship is the longest confession of love.
How long is a lifetime? The old grandfather said: "In the blink of an eye." I am reminded of the words of American author Paul Powers: "Death is always on the way, but you don't really realize it until he creeps in and takes away the finitude of life. It is because we don't know that we think life is It's a well that never dries up."
The fireflies that fill the sky in the final sphere, I think, are a metaphor for the short and endless life of life.
"Another Earth"
One person observes birds, one person plays billiards, one person lives. Until one day, Gaddis, who was alone, went to a parallel world and found the person who made him think about it day and night, and it was himself in this time and space who lived with this person. He said to Alex that he finally saw you. In his eyes, Alex is the perfect being.
Alex is a desire, an ideal, for Gaddis. He wanted to go away with Alex. Here Gaddis tells him that Alex cheated on him and is obsessed with the novelty of first sight. When he asked himself here why he didn't do something, the answer he heard was - no one is perfect. Yes, perfection can only be an ideal, not an existence. Anything you desire, it blooms; you have, it withers.
The entire American drama is divided into 8 independent stories, each of which is closely connected. The timelines within and between stories are not straight. There is a sense of time jumping. One of the last echoes of "Story of Your Life" is the one at the end of "The Man of Rot." By this time Cole had grown up. And the person on the tower that the grandma saw was the Cole when she was a child?
After watching the entire American drama, I strongly think of Borges' thoughts on time in "The Garden of Forking Paths":
Time has no identity and absoluteness. Time is woven into an ever-growing, intricate web of countless series, divergent, converging and parallel times. The web of time that moves closer, diverges, intersects, or never interferes with each other embraces all possibilities. Most of the time we don't exist, some times with you and without me, other times with me and without you, and still other times with both you and me. "
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