moon

Sun 9.20.20

      “Moon?” Is a sci/fi movie about a future man who works for a mega energy corporation, Lunar Industries. Sam is in a space ship on the moon monitoring the extraction of its energy.  Alone save for the computer and its humanoid robot, Gerty, the effects of his 3 year stint in isolation is beginning to show; unkempt, delusional, yet hanging in there, his contract is up shortly.  He is able to see videos that his wife and child made for him back on earth, and he fantasizes about making love to her again. It will be over soon and he'll be home. Then Boom, Bam! Something happens to the ship, and next we see him in the infirmary, and although he has no visible wounds, he's very weak. Slowly his strength comes back and he's jumping rope and working out on the stationary bike again.

Then he spies Gerty talking to the people back at home base on the computer. What does that mean? 

Suited up and out of the ship driving a land rover, he comes upon another land rover. How can that be, isn't he supposed to be alone on this mission? Inside the rover is a wounded man; he brings him to the ship’s infirmary. The man, although bruised, looks exactly like him. What's more, when they talk, to his horror the guy who also calls himself Sam, has the same past as he does, the same wife, the same kid. You're a clone! No, you're the clone. 

We learn through a burn mark on his hand that the wounded man is our hero, the original Sam who's been on the ship for the past 3 years. Then the Sams discover on a lower level of the ship, encircling the whole of the ship are rows of refrigerated Sam clones that look exactly like them.  He calls the woman who purportedly is his wife and finds that his wife died, he is talking to the daughter who is all grown-up. "Dad," she calls out, "someone asking about Mom," she hands the telephone to . . . We will never know because the man on the ship does not want to know and he cuts communication. 

You discover you're a clone with implanted memories and a short shelf life. You live your three years in a barren lifeless planet and then it's over. What you have, your beliefs, your identity aren't even yours. 

I was anxious after watching the movie. A memory came to mind of the first apartment in Manhattan, living on the Lower East Side, a vision unfolded as I stood at the window looking down to East Broadway, the square below and the park across the street.  Instead of the brightly lit Chinese shops and the park’s big trees, I saw another planet, another world barren like the moon, lifeless, rocky.  It so frightened me that I lit candles and began a ritual to protect myself.  What I saw out my window was a complete other planet just as real as Earth, its concrete reality, its deadliness.  I have never spoken of this.  What does it mean?  Am we trapped in a limited cognizance like Sam?

The favorite essay this month has again been,The Karpman Drama Triangle

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