Truth is not Personal or Perceptual

Rating: 10/10 (21 March 2013)

It has been a while for The Wachowskis, but this film marks their return to magnificence. But I have enjoyed all of their films, and this film brings us back to the level of incredibility which we first saw in The Matrix.
I believe that everything is connected. In fact, the way I view the universe is the way it is shown here, my thoughts on Heaven, Hell, Afterlife, even Time all mirrored in this film based on a book which I must read.
I believe that we as souls are put on this earth to learn, to evolve and to become enlightened, and if we keep getting it wrong, we keep getting put back.
That is what this film seems to be saying: a soul, played in several various lifetimes by Tom Hanks, must learn how to change from a scoundrel into a hero. And because he is the narrator of the central story in this time spanning adventure, so must his character be the focus, even when his involvements in the other tales are peripheral.
"There is a Natural Order to this world" - "The Weak are Meat and the Strong must eat" - Even the phrase "Soylent Green is People" - All become repeated phrases or ideas, in sometimes grisly and literal ways.
What makes it difficult to review this movie is the complexity of it, and it was a wise choice not to follow the format of the book. Instead, the stories are told all at once - Because even through the veil of time, they are all happening at once. But I found it not difficult to follow the story as it played out. The first time I watched this I was in a dream-like state, it was as if the film were speaking to me personally. As if the film were telling MY beliefs, even though I was not really aware of it at the time.
And while five of the tales are about "Something Diresome is about to happen" I loved the tale of "Cavendish" - With all of the Dark being played out, the Humour of that chapter was not wasted, and well placed in the film.
Stories like this cannot be told in any format but the format presented here. For anyone who believes that Deja-Vu is a glimpse across time or even alternate universes, this film will be easy to follow. But for people who lack empathy, who either believe in nothing or their religions prevent them from accepting the "true-true" or other ideas and religions, then the meaning of this film will fail to reach them.
I would have been included in that latter group of people, even 20 years ago, but as we live, we learn and our world-view changes. This is how it is supposed to happen. If we live a long time and keep our one and only world view and it does not change, then our lives have failed and we must live it again until we DO understand.
And the other main point of this film, is that Truth is not and never can be objective, we do not perceive the Truth, Truth is Truth whether we believe it or not, see it or not, or ever had it told to us or not. This is where we commonly fail as people, especially when our religions try to replace ideas that have solid evidence to support them, such as the Big Bang and Evolution. I have found that Faith does not require you to believe in Creation stories as Gospel Truth: Faith is also another thing that is not objective, Faith is Faith, you do not have Faith IN something, you simply have Faith- And Faith is not directed toward any person or God, and if connected to religion, the claim is that Faith is FROM God. So too is the True-True.
This was why the Zachry character had trouble with the Meronym Character at first, until a real trust and Truth was established, when Meronym also trusted Zachry enough to tell him why she was there. This is where we always get tripped up, Truth, when we tell it, repels fear.
The magnificence of this film is revealed in the way each actor plays different people through time, sometimes of different races, and sexes. Without the great ensemble of character actors, this film may have failed. It required Faith to have been a part of the making of this film, as each actor was charged with making we the viewers believe in each of the people they had been, are, and will be.
There are so many dimensions to this film, 1000 words are not enough for me to convey how deeply it affected me. The Golden Age SciFi Writer Lester Del Rey (Del Rey Books) is brought to life in the character of Luisa Del Rey.