Review of Another Earth (2011) by Perro H — 26 Jul 2012

A very fine indie flick. The slow pace of the film and its melancholic mood is like a mechanism that was made to grasp the viewer's attention incrementally, and it doesn't let one loose sight of what's about to happen even for a moment.

I think it's brilliant how Mike Cahill was able to insert a somehow cosmic and supernatural concept into this dramatic recollection of a tragedy and hope for redemption. The possibility of a planet, that basically exists in a different dimension, and the thoughts that we may not be alone in the universe, were always present in the human mind.

It's even more overwhelming to note that there may really be people like us somewhere, our own shadows with the same needs and dreams. All those serious scenes of a man struggling with a horrible loss, and a girl that tries to reverse the irreversible, are cleverly disrupted by the idyllic looks at the titular Another Earth, floating far in the outer space.

Then there is the ending, which shows probably the most surprising, and at the same time, the scariest scene of the whole film. It leads to various questions, but no answers are given.