介绍:
"Man from Earth" is an outstanding film. The title of the film, and talk of nanoseconds, Martian colonies, and perfect regeneration, might lead many to expect a thrilling science fiction movie, but those people will soon find themselves disappointed.
The story is about a few college professors sitting in a half empty room shooting the breeze, and the only part of the film that could be considered even remotely exciting involves a gun that is never fired.
To his friends, the protagonist John Oldman is just a retiring scholar, but at an impromptu farewell party he reveals that he is an immortal who has been walking the earth for 14000 years.
His friends and fellow faculty members are taken aback at the revelation, and pepper John with questions related to their own fields of expertise. John is able to answer all of the questions correctly, though he shatters the image of an all-knowing immortal by underscoring the difficulty in keeping up-to-date with the progress of all subjects.
So here we are in a world overwhelmed by various kinds of rapidly expanding information, choosing your information intake carefully is necessary for anyone who wishes to stay sane.
The latter half of the movie witnesses a sudden shift in topic and becomes dominated by a discussion on religion. Again, John shocks his friends by claiming to be Jesus Christ himself.
This striking idea, mingled with little known facts and ideas about early Christianity, make up the bulk of the latter half, until the discussion comes to a sudden stop and everyone leaves after John apologies for having played such a bad joke on them.
The attempt to find common ground between two religions is a nice one, but since the latter half is predominantly a discussion, if not argument, on religious matters, I get an impression that either the screenwriter or the director has run out of whimsical ideas, which have been the highlight of the first part.
Throughout the film there isn't much action, but merely an on-going conversation. Yet the director is able to capture the viewers’ attention, at least in the first half. First of all, every curious mind, thirsty for knowledge, must have considered immorality as the route to master all the knowledge and wisdom of mankind. So the topic stirs up enough of the viewers' imagination that could keep them on their seats. Plus, the viewers are supplied with an abundance of food-for-thought in the form of interesting facts, ideas and even questions in the fields such as history, biology and anthropology, as John deals with his friends' challenge.
Despite the movie's somewhat misfit and monotonous second half and the abrupt ending, the director has managed to capture the viewers' attention with a simple setting, fluent running conversation and thought provoking questions. On a scale from one to ten, this film deserves an eight.
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