Fast Color - 2019, d. Julia Hart - VOD
Prospect - 2018, d. Christopher Caldwell, Zeek Earl - netflix
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It's a rare occasion when I get an evening to myself. It's an even rarer occasion when I get an evening with Toast to sit down and watch a movie. I don't remember the last movie we watched together... Pacific Rim: Uprising maybe? These days when we get together there's usually been months in between so we need hours to catch up. However, last weekend we grabbed drinks and gabbed drunkenly, but the suggestion was put forth to have a movie night, where Toast picked one film and I picked the other.
Toast, without missing a beat, asked if I had watched Prospect on Netflix yet. It was on the shortlist for the last Saturday Sci-Fi Spectacular (and probably should have replaced High-Rise) but I hadn't gotten to it yet.
I had a bit of a harder time deciding upon what film to watch. It didn't have to be sci-fi, it could be anything. But like making a mixtape you want to find something for the other person that you think they will like, that will feel like a discovery, and maybe has a personal connection. My brain raced all week... I had just come out of bingeing Quentin Tarantino, so I was thinking maybe going QT adjacent with Killing Zoe, or jumping into David Twohy films like the Arrival, or Chronicles of Riddick or Timescape (he's another director I want to revisit and I think David is a fan of), or maybe subjecting him to a rewatch of Prometheus so we could - in real time - debate the film (if we had a podcast, that would be an episode for sure). But then I recalled that last week I had asked him if he had seen Fast Color, a film that came highly recommended from iO9 and is one of the unseen superhero films on my list of all superhero films ranked.
So Fast Color it was. [Slight SPOILERS follow] I have to admit screening a film for your friend that you have had no prior experience with is a little uncomfortable, but within the opening few minutes of the film it was obvious this was a film that was on Toast's level, as there's a post-apocalyptic element to it. It's not quite the usual PoAp structure, as it's not a zombie or nuclear or environmental apocalypse, but rather just the fact that it hasn't rained in 8 years and water is now a precious resource. It also seems that technology has regressed - where digital and automated technologies are either out of commission or were never present to begin with. It seems like background and setting for the story but it really builds the world and has a very specific purpose. In some respects it feels like the dusty, uncomfortable future world of Logan but it's not the future.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw is Ruth, a young woman on the move through this reality. We learn early on she has abilities, but lacks control of them. When they trigger, it results in a massive shockwave, manifesting like a localized earthquake. The government knows she exists and has been trying to track her down. They don't really say what they want her for, but you know, likely experimentation or weaponizing...shady government shit.
Ruth, her resources running low and the net closing in on her, returns home, to her estranged mother and daughter, both of whom share the same ability to, basically, atomize and reconstruct objects. The film explores the dynamic between these three characters, their troubled history, and hint at the larger mythology of their abilities which may or may not be contained to their narrow bloodline. Of course, the familial drama is shadowed by the government narrowing down Ruth's position, and the town sheriff who seems to have his own interest in the strange things going on around town.
Fast Color isn't a superhero movie, so much as it is a superpowers movie. What's more is it avoids the origin story. This isn't about characters using their powers to perform heroic deeds, but is instead interested in character and world building. The great discovery here is not Ruth's powers , but the source of her trauma and the impact it has on her abilities. But there is something to be said for a scene where a group of armed white males, law enforcement no les, face off against three generations of black women and are humbled by their power. It's a scene not overtly presented on those lines, but the impact of the subtext is felt.
The movie tonally feels very much in line with other people-with-powers-chased-by-the-government films like Starman or Midnight Special or Push or even the YouTube tv series Impulse. It's rhythms are familiar, but offers it's own reality and connection.
I enjoyed this movie, but I enjoyed it even more with the foreknowledge that Amazon has already picked it up for a series. Since it is a smaller budget, more limited focus movie, it easily acts as a pilot or introduction to everything that comes after. Hopefully Mbatha-Raw returns so that we can follow Ruth as she navigates her new world that the end of the film sets up but I'm game for wherever the creators want to take it.
Like Fast Color, Prospect is a small story taking place within a reality hinted at being so much larger than what we see or hear about. Where Fast Color had fables handed down through the family line, and setting which hinted at a world in trouble, Prospect has details of a distinct universe that these characters live in. For instance, our main character, Cee (Sophie Thatcher) writes in a journal in a very distinctive cursive of swoops and edges. It looks like scribbles but with purpose, and is clearly the written language of this reality. She also listens to music which is like a melding of fuzzed out 50's garage pop melded with traditional Chinese folk songs, but sung in an oblique dialect that sounds human but unreal. There's discussions throughout the film of institutions, planets, professions, organizations and such in this reality that hint as being just a drop in the bucket of a much grander universe. All of these small details manage to escape being sci-fi jargon, and instead feel natural aspects of their conversations, serving only to make the characters feel more like they inhabit this reality.
And what a ramshackle reality it is. Cee and her father drop to the surface from space on a very specific mission, to help a group of mercenaries harvest organic gems this planet produces. It's a delicate procedure with definite skill required. Cee is apprehensive about the endeavor, even though the score would mean financial security for some time, but the threat of missing their jump ship out of the space sector would leave them stranded for a long time, perhaps too long to survive.
The planet is a lush, dense forested world, but one whose ever-present pollen is toxic to humans. While it would seem this should be a virtually abandoned world, Cee encounters a few different groups of people throughout the course of the film. There's a journey she has to take, but not a clear cut one. It's not any right-of-passage or coming-of-age, but the shock-to-the-system necessity of survival in the reality she's faced with. Pedro Pascal plays a rival prospector in the film and once again just oozes charisma. He's a genuinely remarkable actor to watch, able to imbue complexity into any role. Is he a villain or a good guy? Selfish or altruistic? Deceitful or sincere? He inhabits the grey very well, and keeps the viewer guessing as to his true intentions.
Toast pointed out in our viewing that there was clearly some Firefly influence here. Pascal's character could be a riff on Mal Reynolds, and there's such grittiness and texture to this reality it could share some of its space. The visual design of Prospect feels somewhat retro. The ships have a late-60's/early-70's NASA vibe, while the interiors are part 2001 and part camper-van. The wardrobe, the loose-fitting environment suits look to be made from heavy canvas, and each suit is delightfully unique. I like the way some of the suits completely disguise the person inside you you never get a glimpse of them.
Like Fast Color this is a reality I want to spend more time in, here perhaps even more so. But in this case, it's not the characters of this film I have the strongest desire to see, but rather just a wish to see more of the universe however it be presented. Don't get me wrong, the journey of the characters here is fascinating and often surprising, but their story feels done. The universe, however, could host plenty of other tales.
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