The meaning behind "Ad Astra"

Almost as soon as we learned the craft of filmmaking, we started using it to address unknown regions of space, making assumptions about what might be elsewhere in the universe and where the place of the man would be among the stars. One of the first examples of the sci-fi film, which paved the way for the kind of show we hope to see in the cinema, was Georges Melies A trip to the moon (1902). The shot of Man on the Moon with a rocket in the left eye has become an iconic image of the history of cinema, but this is just the beginning of the story. During his brief 18-minute performance, the film's astronauts meet a foreign species called Selenites, kill their monarch and return victorious to Earth with a captured stranger. The film ends with a statue unveiled in the honor of astronauts, who reads "Labor omnia vincit", a Latin phrase meaning "Work triumphs over everything". Although more than a century has been removed from the film of Melies, Ad Astra is shaped by it. While the satirical and anti-imperialist nature of the short film has long been debated, there is probably no better picture to describe the exploration and colonization of man than a rocket ship stuck in the eyes of the moon. Ad AstraThe lunar colony, with its mining sectors, hotels and earthly comfort, is the modern equivalent of an artificial rocket ship stuck in the eyes of the moon.

The phrase "work conquers everything" is the central idea that made Roy McBride the man he is, a man who sacrifices personal relationships, human relations and the community for the sole interest of the mission. It is a virtue born of the Boomer Age, to which Roy's father, H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones), subscribed, which eventually led him to abandon his family to embark on an alien life. This type of work ethic, based on the inheritance of careers rather than on family inheritance, is at the root of many terse relationships between fathers and sons. It is the work ethic that leaves Roy alone and has to cope with a loneliness that he can not face, but that he tries to reconstruct through the poetry of his voice-over, which is a search for the truth. which weighs as much as that of his father. . Ad Astra presents the space as a vast solitary void, beautiful and impenetrable. It is therefore logical that the men and women who cross it find themselves in the same solitude and exploit a great emptiness in their centers as they search for something in the dark to fill it. But this loneliness is not what our space media have always been.

Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek presented the idea that exploring "space – the last frontier" was a common experience. Starfleet is based on cooperation and the idea that no man can bear the weight of the universe. This upbeat presentation not only influenced the decades of science fiction television that followed, but also movies such as Ridley Scott's. The Martian (2015), in which our success in space depends entirely on our ability to work together without borders. As much of horror as in our films on space, much of which depends on Scott. Extraterrestrial (1979), our interest in this area of ​​science fiction is largely defined by optimism and wonderment, but even these aspects have a dark, hidden side of the light of nearby stars.

Isolation, like pain, is an idea that we have been conditioned to believe necessary for great success. That we were talking about the real heroism of Neil Armstrong and the personal sacrifices he made along the way, as directed by Ryan Gosling in Damien Chazelle First man (2018), or the science fiction heroism of Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) in Christopher Nolan Interstellarwe have learned that our future depends on those who will enter diligently into the sphere of martyrdom. "We used to look at the sky and marvel at our place in the stars. Now we look down and worry about our place in the mud, "says Cooper. And through Nolan's perspective, we find value in these words and we deplore the lack of exploration of space that took place in the 21st century.^st century. His decision to leave his family, although painful, is considered a necessary step, the benefits for humanity outweigh his personal costs.

Ad Astra, who shares a number of similarities with Interstellar, including the director of photography, Hoyte van Hoytema, presents another perspective on Nolan's impetus for space travel. By asking ourselves about our place in the stars rather than the dust, we lose something that makes us undeniably human. The further the human race is from Earth in James Gray's film, the more foreign he becomes. Humans on the moon are tourists, and just like humans on Earth. But on Mars, there is an extraterrestrial quality for them with their oversized clothes, their unkept hair and their emotional cold blood that suggests the early stages of evolution, hidden from the eyes of their earthly counterparts. It is on Mars that we begin to see that Roy is really starting to struggle with his own emotions, sadness, and frustrations about his relationship with his father. These feelings emerge forcefully to remind Roy of his own humanity, as a fight or flight reflex. While sending messages to his father to try to communicate with him, in order to find answers to the surge of cosmic energy that could destroy the solar system, he begins to reveal memories of his relationship with his father memories that are questioned when Roy will later meet face to face with the man.

One of the memories Roy shares in his latest message to his father is that they watched black and white musicals together when he was a kid. When Roy arrives at the base of Lima Project after more than two months of isolation, the musical comedy Orchestra women (1942) plays on the screens, seeming to confirm Roy's memory of their common bond with classic Hollywood musicals. But minutes later, at a moving meeting that also serves as a showdown, Clifford tells Roy that he never cared for him or his mother. All that interested him was to find confirmation that humans were not alone in the universe. The musical takes on a new meaning, not because of its intrigue, but because of its very nature. Musical comedies are, in their essence, an exaggeration of the real life, emotions and stories that make up human stories. And these musicals are often based on artifices, large sets and moving pieces that the public accepts as imitations of life. And in the end, that's what the film is: imitation and artifice, with music movies being the most extreme versions of it. H. Clifford is a man who does not care about humanity, not even the family, but who is attracted by the artifice of humanity, the exaggeration of feelings he does not feel. When Roy responds to his father's confession that he never cares about his family or the Earth, he says "I know, dad", which not only casts doubt on this shared memory but allows him to face the truth and creates the path of his eventual transcendence.

Ad Astra encourages the public to expect a major revelation, the kind of sci-fi show that ends with a revelation of H. Clifford's fusion with extraterrestrial life, or that Roy establishes an extraterrestrial bond that brings him to the end of the universe and transforms him. As much as Ad Astra form a contemporary link with Interstellarhe forms an even bigger one with the work of Stanley Kubrick 2001: The Space Odyssey (1968), based on the work of Arthur C. Clarke. From monkeys to the moon, Ad Astra is punctuated with allusions to Kubrick's masterpiece, but its influence is most evident when it comes to the idea of ​​transcendence. In 2001, after Bowman (Keir Dullea) gets rid of HAL (Douglas Rain), he is dragged into a Star Gate, in a tripping sequence that ends with his encounter with an older version of himself and his transformation by the Monolith in Star Child, a fetus like being who floats above the Earth with a messianic promise. Ad AstraThe final act takes a similar structure, with Roy's trip to Neptune as being his own Star Gate, though, rather than a huge array of immense colors and images, Roy or bombarded by his own memories, his failing connections and selfishness that cost him his marriage to Eve (Liv Tyler). And when he arrives at the base of Lima projects, his father is the future version of himself if he has to continue sacrificing his feelings for work and allows the sins of the father to become the sins of the son. In this 2001 H. Clifford is both a future version of the film's protagonist and the monolith, an insensitive, stone-faced entity whose very nature allows Roy's rebirth.

Ad Astra deserves a place in our science fiction canon, not because it dares us to head to the unknown. On the contrary, he dares to look at the truth within ourselves, to recognize the destructive nature of our own alienation and to take the time to heal. These are things we know as humans, but that we have so often delayed in our search for what will follow and what comes next. As the Roman philosopher wrote, "There is no easy way to go," there is no easy way between Earth and the stars. But perhaps, like Roy McBride's trip, it's this lack of ease that connects us and ultimately motivates us.