Making Sense

I was discussing the basic plot of Sunshine with Lance, since he recently saw it on video. The mostly unknown film was directed by Danny Boyle, probably best known for his film, Trainspotting.

It chronicles the tale of Icarus 2, a multinational crew sent to the Sun to essentially send a bomb to reignite the Sun, as it is, mysteriously, getting prematurely cool. Icarus 2 is the second mission sent at the original Icarus, sent out years earlier, has not been heard from.

As science fiction movies go, this is pretty intelligent, except for the entire end sequence. Science fiction movies often feel a need to amp the tension, and so, the idea is that Icarus 2 will discover Icarus 1, and decide to make a detour and join up with it.

In an initial scene, the doctor is engrossed with the power of the Sun, and wishes to be enveloped by its awesome fury. This sun worship is echoed by the Japanese captain, and eventually becomes critically important. As it turns out, the original crew of the Icarus have suddenly become sun worshippers, and while most have died, the captain stays alive, for no particular reason, except with the random hope that maybe a second mission might be sent out? When he realizes a second mission has been sent out, he finds it an affront to the Sun god (for lack of a better explanation) and does what he can to prevent the mission from succeeding.

For the most part, the crew seems reasonable, and make somewhat reasonable decisions. But because it's absolutely critical for the second crew to meet the first crew, they have to bend over backwards to make it happen. In particular, they decide that they don't know whether the equations are accurate enough to be sure that the first attempt will be succesful, and so two chances are better than one. On the other hand, how do they intend for both ships to go? Can one ship carry the payload of two? Why not try once and come back if that fails?

You can go on and on, nitpicking this little detail or that little detail.

I was rewatching a little of a short film called Night Swimming. Although the likelihood of the tale is similarly silly, many short films are often short on believable plot, and longer on emotion, a sense of place.

In particular, Night Swimming is about Otter, who's closeted and fantasizes about his best friend, Darby, who happens to a bit happy go lucky. Darby is seen hanging out with his girlfriend, indicating to the audience that "he is straight". But the idea is to get these two teens together somehow, and so the story is that they plan to go to a concert, and take a shortcut, when the truck stops working, and they figure they should stay the evening, and see what to do the next morning. To amp the tension some, it seems like there are hunters nearby, and Otter thinks they might be serial killers.

Darby wants to go out for a night swim, sans clothing, and Otter reluctantly joins him. At some point, Darby brings up the topic of who Otter thinks about when he, shall we say, pleasures himself. He notes the way Otter has looked at his girlfriend, but no, it's really Darby that he fancies. For a moment, the two get their rocks off. The next day, Darby decides he's committed to his girlfriend, and Otter is crushed, and sends out an application to art school, something his dad had been hounding him to do.

This film lasts all of maybe twenty minutes, and has plot holes galore. But in this case, I cared a lot less. The point really was to create a point in time where Otter comes to term with his feelings for Darby, and while the entire sequence of them making out (well, sorta) is contrived, it creates a decision point that cause their friendship to rift, and when you have twenty minutes to get a point across, then you rely on something silly to make it work. All credit to the actors and the filming that it doesn't come across as contrived, but actually somewhat moving.

As I was checking into the cast of this film, I noticed Otter was played by Bobby Steggert. He's the stronger of the three actors, but it can be very challenging to move from a small part like this to the big time. He's done a recurring role in a soap opera, All My Children and apparently had a role in The Namesake.

What is more interesting, to me anyway, is that he graduated valedictorian from nearby Frederick, MD, some twenty minutes north of where I live now. He's mostly doing theater work now, which goes to show that there are far more actors than jobs for actors in movies.

Occasionally, these short films make me want to make a short film myself, except I don't have a particularly good idea. Short films also rely on a bunch of other things to succeed, from good actors, to good cinematography. The more things that are good, the more likely the film can be successful. Good story is up there with good acting. Good acting can compensate for bad stories because you can be completely transfixed by good actors, but bad actors can totally both a good movie.

I would hope that if I could make movies (a long shot at best) that it would be well thought out. But I get the feeling, with so many movies made that don't make sense, that this is much harder than it seems or people who write movies are much dumber than I thought.