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As
a teenager, I used to enter competitions to see movies for free or before they
were released to the general public. A contest came about to go into the draw
for a sneak peak of the new film “Contact” starring Jodie Foster. The entry
required me to answer a question. I can’t quite remember what that questions
was (had something to do with outer space) but the answer couldn’t be longer
than 25 words. I wrote a few versions, coming to a final answer and sent it off
(in the mail, not online) and hoped for the best.
A
couple of weeks later, I got a reply, awarding me with two free tickets to see
Contact at the Hoyts Cinema on Bourke Street, Melbourne (which are no longer
there). My dad was keen to see the film as well, as he had read the book by
Carl Sagan. I knew nothing of the book but was obsessed with any film dealing
with aliens and the universe. Around this time, my dad was working at the Crown
Casino in Melbourne. He would finish work around 6pm. I made the journey into
the city by train on my own (which was a first for me) and met my dad outside
one of the Casino entrances. We grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then walked
over to Bourke Street in the city.
We
watched the film, along with a packed theatre of other competition winners and
possibly a few film critics. A staff member from the theatre came out before
the screening, thanking us for entering the competition and let the whole
audience know we were amongst the first people in the country to be seeing the
much anticipated film. Knowing that, I watched the film from a different point
of view. I aimed to take in every single details about it; the story, the cast,
etc so I could tell others all about it before it was released.
As
the curtain opened and the lights went down, the movie began. I loved it from
the very start. The film was carried all the way through by the terrific
performance of Jodie Foster. The slow but engrossing build up to when a signal
from outer space is recieved by earth,; Fosters character is the first to hear
it (after a lifetime of listening to silence through her headphones)and the
film kicks into high gear from there. The signal is recieved in code, and is
gradually deciphered by the world’s top scientists. Through their discovery,
they unravel blue prints of some sort which give instructions on how to build a
machine.
Contact
was directed by Robert Zemeckis, who had previously helmed “Forrest Gump”. He
incorporated many of the same filmmaking talents and techniques he did on Gump
to create this film. For example, in Forrest Gump he cleverly incorporated Tom
Hanks into real footage of historic events and made it look like he was meeting
actual US Presidents, including Nixon and Kennedy. In contact, Bill Clinton
makes a few appearances in the film but is never billed as playing a part.
Instead, they cleverly add him in with the wonder of CGI at several important
points in the story.
What
made this film for me was the performance of Jodie Foster. She plays Ellie
Arroway; an intelligent and passionate astronomer who has dedicated her life to
the stars, and even though she goes years without a hint of communication or
any proof that life exists on other planets, she perseveres.
Ellie recieves knock back after knock back in her pursuit for answers, but never veers off track, despite the pressure she gets from her superiors. Her mission pays off when she and her team recieve the first signal sent to earth from space. She tries to uphold her dignity and beliefs when the government get involved, wanting to militarise the operation and basically take the discovery away from her. Even amidst all that, Ellie just keeps on fighting (aided by a reclusive astronomer played by John Hurt) and in time, gets the chance to fulfil her dream. When she makes her “journey” on the machine the humans built as instructed by the aliens, she’s taken on a ride like no other, discovering things and places beyond our world she cannot explain. On this journey, she lands on some distant worlds where she is reunited with someone she’d lost from her past. It’s a touching moment that really sums up what life and human existence are all about.
Ellie recieves knock back after knock back in her pursuit for answers, but never veers off track, despite the pressure she gets from her superiors. Her mission pays off when she and her team recieve the first signal sent to earth from space. She tries to uphold her dignity and beliefs when the government get involved, wanting to militarise the operation and basically take the discovery away from her. Even amidst all that, Ellie just keeps on fighting (aided by a reclusive astronomer played by John Hurt) and in time, gets the chance to fulfil her dream. When she makes her “journey” on the machine the humans built as instructed by the aliens, she’s taken on a ride like no other, discovering things and places beyond our world she cannot explain. On this journey, she lands on some distant worlds where she is reunited with someone she’d lost from her past. It’s a touching moment that really sums up what life and human existence are all about.
Contact
is a beautifully made film, with a strong message at its heart – never give up
on your dreams, never stop believing and never stop fighting.
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