Contact (1997) - Sooner Or Later.

★★★★★

When I was on my way to work this morning, I don’t know, this film just popped up in my mind all of a sudden. It’s a film back in 1997, but after all these years, it still moves and astounds me just thinking of it. I’m talking about a sci-fi classic that will get people to ruminate about one’s faith in science or divinity, and the position of Earth in the Universe.

I remember I first watched ‘Contact’ on a local TV channel. Its running time’s 150 minutes, a relatively long film, but it’s not at all boring. There’s a lot of talking indeed before the final contact happens. The things they say are by no means rubbish. They’re pretty thought-provoking and help set up the mood for the spellbinding ending—the way they manage to finally get Jodie Foster’s Ellis to have contact with another being from another world so much afar, is absolutely mind-blowing to me as a boy back then and even now as a grownup. I never figured it’d end up like that. That what really happens inside can be so different from what it seems from outside! I almost burst into tears seeing Ellis waking up on that beautiful beach to have a philosophical conversation with a seemingly gentle, sophisticated being disguising as her father. It says, ‘you (mankind) are an interesting species, an interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.’

All the time, I wish it was me going through all that, and wouldn’t have to come back to this world of sufferings after all. Just like the unforgettable ‘K-PAX’, ‘Contact’ means a lot more than just a film to me. It makes me wanna get out of my comfort zone for real, and somehow strengthens my faith in something a whole lot more complete than anything I’ve ever come across by far in my life. It’s already out there in fact. I may not be able to have it right now, but I believe I will sooner or later!

P.S.: in case you may misunderstand, all you read here at ‘Almost Buddhist’ is anything but so called movie reviews coz I’m no professional in such things, and have no interest and talent to be one either. It’s all my feelings and opinions on certain things as sometimes a Buddhist, and most of the time a troubled man!