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Far Side Of The Moon

2003, Movie, NR, 105 mins

Far Side Of The Moon: Review

FAR SIDE OF THE MOON
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Quebecois filmmaker Robert Lepage explores inner and outer space through the fractious relationship between estranged brothers Andre and Philippe. Philippe (Lepage), the elder, is still living the life of a poor university student; he's about to defend his thesis, which dissects the narcissistic impulse behind the U.S.-Soviet space race, for the second time and has a dead-end job selling newspaper subscriptions by phone. He's lived his entire adult life in the shabby apartment where he grew up, caring for his increasingly disabled mother (Anne-Marie Cadieux) until she entered a nursing home. Still shaken by her recent death, Philippe wants Andre (also Lepage) — a successful TV weatherman who lives in a picture-perfect apartment with his handsome boyfriend, Carl (Marco Poulin), and their camera-ready dog — to take some responsibility for disposing of her things. Andre stands him up, which is just one of the many humiliations that seem to define Philippe's life: He finds himself on the phone with his ex-girlfriend, Nathalie (Céline Bonnier), who's married well and has a child, while making a pitch call from work; he's treated like a crazy person by guards at the Cosmodome Space Center, where he hopes to give a copy of his thesis to Russian lecturer Alexi Leonov, a former cosmonaut; he has an awkward encounter with Carl in a sauna; he's thrown out of a hotel lounge by the bartender for being loud and obnoxious; and he loses his job for making personal phone calls. And then Philippe's luck seems to change: He receives an invitation to attend a symposium in Moscow and present his thesis there. Lepage is fascinated by the mythology of space, especially the notion that people once believed the moon was a great silvery mirror that reflected the topography of the Earth. His film is structured around doubles and opposites, and filled with fluid transitions between past and present and eerily fanciful images that connect the Earthbound and the cosmic. A child looks into the round window of a washing machine and sees the infinity of space; the camera tracks slowly into a pregnant woman's belly, where what appears to be a fetus proves on closer examination to be a tiny cosmonaut, floating on the end of an umbilical rope. Lepage maintains a leisurely pace and lets the narrative wander, but ultimately lands on the right side of the line between contemplative noodling and aimless navel-gazing, ending with an image that's simultaneously melancholy and playful. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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