"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
Dylan Thomas
With these Welsh poet's verses, we follow the departure of the spaceship 'Endurance' and get the manifesto of Interstellar - a visibly "stellar" Film encompassing the yearning for life, while discussing major themes regarding humankind. Just as the film examines, even at the peak of technology men are still capable of making mistakes. As a result of their limitations, they are forced to rely on the most natural part of being - the survival instinct.
It isn't until they stumble upon the most remote part of the galaxy, where we establish that men bring their chaos to find the lost cosmos.
A myriad of film literature has been written about Christopher Nolan's last work, inspiring even those who consistently claim a disliking to the science fiction genre, such as myself. The amount of praise Interstellar has received is likely a result of the in-depth themes portrayed throughout the film - it is not a film that leaves you emotionless. Despite the varying viewpoints the audience of the film will inevitably hold, the topics presented throughout demand to be talked about. And when a Hollywood product forces people to think, Cinema always wins.
After great, disturbing films such as Memento, Inception, and the The Dark Knight Trilogy, Christopher Nolan manages to make the film of the Century.
Although it is not the best movie ever directed, it is one that ideologically belongs to our era. Nature is up in arms, however, it is never as cruel as human nature - where people often find themselves split in the eternal conflict between good and evil. It is human nature that is the center of the Universe.
"We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars, now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt."
In the future imagined by Nolan, a plausible future given our planet's current degradation, the era of technology is "withdrawn" in a greedy, covetousness circle.
The explorers had been insatiable to land amongst Gargantua, until Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) ends up facing a black hole. Being afraid of losing all he has back on Earth, we see the transformation has Cooper goes from a mere explorer, to a guardian.
And albeit "We will find a solution ... We always have", the desperate situation Cooper and the other explorers are in leads the viewers to conclude that nothing in life is ever certain.
Interstellaris very anthropocentric - human nature is analyzed in every aspect to be vivisected and revived into the film's various characters: Cooper, Murphy, Amalia, Professor Brand, Dr. Mann, and Tom. Everyone is a crucial detail of the bigger picture. Men rekindle the silence of Universe, making it, in some ways, a better place. However, they are still capable of evil, which is not hidden in the cosmos otherwise. Not surprisingly, "they", the alleged puppet masters of the Universe, resolve inexorably to become "us". It seems that God died for Nolan, as well as for Nietzsche.
Interstellar succeeds in reconciling something that seemed impossible to join - science and humanity. The film perfectly melds both the calculable and the infinite flaw of feelings.
Nolan demonstrates his talent as a director with the poignant delivery of character lines such as:
"Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends time and space"
This evidently banal and diabetic sentence is key to the whole story and, for the first time, love is presented as something physical, and quantitatively measurable - a real force, free from the indefinable emotional sphere, that can overcome any barrier. Nolan's great intuition lies in this unthinkable bond of the most advanced science and the primal urge, between reason and feeling. The perfection of science was always believed to be the answer to such a catastrophe, however, it turns out that love, the "forgotten humanity", is in fact, the real solution.
But what kind of love can put rest to the chaos? In the film's case, it is the lasting, true love between parents and their children: Cooper and Murph are the sacred and powerful symbol of eternal love.
"Once you're a parent, you are the ghost of your children's future"
One of the most interesting ideas behind Interstellar is the pondered mix between a blockbuster hit and authorial influences. It contrasts the ideas between the good and evil, often present in humans. Therefore, it is an ambitious film that seems to win, albeit scientific flaws certainly exist.
It is uncertain whether Interstellar, in the wake of Gravity (which turned out to be more inaccurate concerning quantum physics), is going to win an Oscar, but to quote the film, "Murphy's Law says that all that needs to happen, will happen." And to me, this film did not seem bad at all.
