Farewells

In the 90s there certainly was one movie that caught my attention like few others: Gattaca from 1997. I still remember watching it in the cinema many times because I worked there for a while and had free access to all theaters whenever I wanted. According to Wikipedia Gattaca never even covered its costs. Still, for me it is a memorable movie. Why? First of all I like dystopian scenarios and stories. Secondly I really like the actors, they fit well together and I enjoy watching Jude Law perform. But that is not the essence here. The idea of genetic discrimination alone is very interesting. Taking away the engineered genetic perfection, just looking at people as they are without sci-fi engineering, it applies to any discrimination. I have always been driven by equality, social equality and a strong opponent of discrimination by any kind. I was impressed to learn about the French revolution, the rebels and freedom fighters throughout history. At the same time I was disgusted by the incarnation of discrimination, the history of my own country during the reign of the Nazis. This made me a socialist and a in my heart a rebel against inequality. Sounds like a couch revolutionary? Yes, it does. I am lazy as hell and don't go to demonstrations, but I can argue and discuss well, that is my course of action.

Okay, drifting away, back to the movie and its music. The latter I can really recommend, it is somewhat sad, to downplay it at least. Especially the last song, The Departure:

In fact it is very carrying and pain-stricken. It has also some promising moments, it is played in the very end of the movie when the protagonist Vincent (played by Ethan Hawke) finally steps into the spaceship and leaves earth. After all the struggle of deception and hiding his true nature, just a man with defective and not-engineered genes, something nobody can ever know because only people with perfect genes are allowed in the space program. However, his supporter and friend Jerome incinerates himself the same moment the spaceship engines incinerate, to hide all traces - also probably because Jerome wants to end his life as a paralyzed man with perfect genes. The end of this movie has thus many farewells, Vincent terminally leaving earth, Jerome at the same moment leaving life. Not to mention a love left behind. So enough room to be sad, a sad goodbye. The music expresses very strongly the feeling of farewell. Also it has a few moments that indicate something new, something promising is waiting after the farewell. Not too much though, it is not close to that brink where you think it is getting happier and lighter, just before it falls back into the more darker mood of farewell.

Why am I writing this? I have had some farewells in my life. Some I thought would be permanent, but were not. Others were terminal. Just recently I experienced a farewell that was pained, too much for my taste. Something I was waiting for desperately for a long time. My life seemed to be focused only to this one point in time. I couldn't wait for anything else, around me, the rest of my daily routine blurred into pettiness. The only clearly visible thing lay before me. And when it was over, it was connected to a farewell, one of these farewells for a long time, it felt as if it was forever, the pain unbearable. Just like one of these sad scenes we know from many movies, where lovers need to say goodbye at the airport. There are many uncertainties when they can meet again, or if. Also there is hope, their love is strong, or at least they believe in that. So after their farewell they can make plans to meet again. Some lights at the horizon, kind of.

In the background, in the back of my mind, this song was playing all of the time.