DVRG MAGAZINE
By: Nadia Friza
Space and Time: The Inconsistencies
1. Looper (2012)
If time-jump does exist, one kind of job that will probably exist is Looper, the one that kills people from the future who’s being sent back to the present time (read: 2034) to be killed. Payment to do this kind of job? 3 bars of gold. Payment to do this kind of job if the present-Looper should kill the future-Looper? A suitcase full of gold bar. Payment if failed doing the job? Own self. A young-Looper, named Joe (casted by Joseph Gordon-Levitt), finds out the hard-truth after attending his friend’s “big pay off” party. He doesn’t believe it at the first time, until he has a mission to “closed the loop” of himself, to kill future-Looper (casted by Bruce Wills).
Of course at first, he doesn’t know the man in the blindfold that he has to kill is his future-self. Once he know, he has 2 options: to kill his future-self, live life wealthily by spending the gold bars that he has collected, and prepares to die at the time, the place, and the way that he precisely know. Or to not kill his future-self, run away as fugitive because the payment to not do the given job is be killed by the company who gave him the job. The movie tells us what happens to young-Joe when he choose option 1, or option 2.
Later did he know, he has option 3. By finding out the real reason the company send their own future-Looper back to present time. Turns out, both of option 3 and the real reason have something in common, the future-boss of the company; his own kid. As a young man who doesn’t understand the meaning of settling down but longing for a warm family, his decision might affect the future of a kid who could still live in a loving family, thus wouldn’t turned the kid to be like himself, a person who killed another man for his own benefit. By the end of the movie, young-Joe chooses to finish the job he got, by giving a new meaning of it, cloosing his own loop.
SPOILER ALERT!
For all we know, time is consistently moving forward, never backward, never jump in to certain time and go back to square one. That means, living creatures always grow older, never grow younger. That’s the law of time that applies to our space, our dimension. Perhaps the time-jump happens in other dimension. Perhaps the time inconsistency happens in the future, like in Loopermovie, not in our present. It definitely doesn’t happen naturally in mother nature. It caused by disease like in The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttonmovie, or by genetic-anomaly like in The Time Traveler’s Wife movie.
2. The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009)
If people in Looper movie could go back and forth of time by using machine, there’s only one person who could do so in this movie due to anomality in his genetic, Henry de Tamble (casted by Eric Bana). If the adapted-movie exposes Henry’s journey as the time traveler himself through time, the original-novel truly exposes the point of view of the time traveler’s wife, Claire (casted by Rachel McAdams) (read here for more).
How young-Henry survived from tragic car accident. How young-Henry met old-Henry for the first time, How young-Henry traveled through time for the first time. How adult-Henry talked to his mother after she passed away, How adult-Henry struggled with no clothes and money in the present time after jumping-time. How adult-Henry met Claire for the first time. How young Claire met old-Henry for the first time. How old-Henry married to Claire. How old-Henry had to share Claire with another man, the young version of him. How Henry and Claire’s marriage, and their struggle to have a kid.
How time traveler Henry could not control when, where, and why to travel. These all captured imaginatively and perfectly in the movie. But it’s kind of confusing to watch by the time-jump, if we haven’t read the novel. Not to mention, the movie could make us, the believers, believe further that human does evolve, thus time-jump is possible to happen through evolution.
If the time sequence in Looper and The Time Traveler’s Wife movies go back and forth through time, in this movie the plot is moving forward, started from the day Benjamin Button (casted by Brad Pitt) born in World War I to the day Button died. From the bald-wrinkled-strong-mind Button to the young-handsome-yet-dementia Button.
Interesting? To watch, yes. To live with, not. When a baby’s first walk is celebrated by adult, osteoporosis-Button’s first walk is seen as miracle by other people. In fact, a preacher died instantly after seeing Button’s first walk from his wheelchair. When Button has his puberty and needs to satisfy his urge, there’s only one pros*titute who wants to sleep with him, because the others are afraid of Button’s appearance. When Button finds love in someone, the one that he loves is an underage, and expressing his love might seem as attacking minor.
Button has fallen in love with Daisy (casted by Cate Blanchett) since he was 5 years old. But Button has to wait 42 years to finally able to spend live with Daisy. Because when they were young, they were from different world. Young-beautiful-balerina Daisy is so uptown compared to unattractive-wrinkled-blue-collar Button. Watching this movie makes us won’t think twice whether to grow old together with the person we love or to grow younger and watch the person we love die before us.
3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
Raise your hand if you think one day in the future we could travel trough space and time. Or should we move to another dimension to experience so?