Film Screening Response: Next (2007)

Next is a film directed by Lee Tamahori, and adapted from Philip K. Dick’s short story, “The Golden Man.” Overall I found the film a bit disappointing. I felt the movie was thirty minutes too short as it lacks an apparent satisfactory ending. It left me wondering if anything actually happened in the film as the end credits was rolling in reverse. The entire film was layered in different realities that could be the future or the present. In the beginning of the film the distinctions were clear as the color tone served as a marker; however, towards the end of the movie, viewers were informed that what we had actually seen thus far didn’t happen yet, and the plot abruptly ended when a closure was definitely expected. One phrase by Chris Johnson (Nicholas Cage) was particularly interesting, “here’s the thing about the future. Every time you look at it, it changes, and that changes everything else.” This reminded me of several authors we read so far this semester. Bergon’s Creative Evolution suggests that, “time is invention or it is nothing at all,” and in the case of Next the nature of form becomes questionable: is it still an instantaneous juxtaposition in space, or is it something that’s been predetermined? It seems that both arguments can be justified using Bergson’s time as an invention. If latter scenario is the case, then Virilio’s objective, subjective, and trajective frame work seems to be a useful tool in analyzing the relationships among past, future, and present. If form is predetermined then the trajective element would be permanently missing; however, in Virilio’s Open Sky, the trajective seems to refer to state of the present, as dromology pollutes the space, and time by bringing the future and the past instantaneously closer than ever. In Next, this trajectivity is no longer depicting the present; it is bringing future closer to a future that’s even further away.