Deer Hunter

Deer Hunter

Thursday, March 13, 2014

SOMEWHERE IN TIME



SOMEWHERE IN TIME 
“Time travel IS possible”




THE PLOT:

Richard Collier is a successful playwright who lives in Chicago and seems to have everything going for him except for the fact that he never found the “right one”. The film starts with an odd moment when, during a reception, an old woman approaches Collier and gives him an old and beautiful pocket watch. She whispers “come back to me” and then turns and walks away.

Eight years later, faced with writer’s block, Collier spontaneously decides to take a weekend trip. He drives aimlessly and eventually winds up on Mackinac Island, in Michigan, where he enters the sumptuous Victorian-era Grand Hotel.
While waiting for the dining room to open, he wanders into the Hall of History, a room where some artifacts from the hotels past are exhibited. There, and in a scene of rare beauty, he is captivated by an old photograph of a beautiful woman. 


After some enquiries he finds out that her name is Elise MacKinnon, a turn-of the century famous actress who once appeared in a play in the hotel’s theater. 
Collier becomes obsessed with her and soon discovers that an old caretaker of Elise still lives nearby. He visits her and that’s how he understands that the old woman who handed him the pocket watch, (on what would turn out to be the night she died), was in fact Elise, the same one as in the photograph that mesmerized him.
While there, Collier notices a book on time travel written by an old colleague professor of his, a book that according to Elise's caretaker, she had read over and over again.
Upon meeting the professor and discussing the possibility of time travel, Collier decides to try a self induced hypnosis in order to travel back in time and meet Elyse. He succeeds and travels back to the year 1912, the day prior to Elise’s performance at the grand hotel. 




Thoughts on Somewhere in time:

I sometimes wonder to which degree my own perception of events defines and may alter these same events. It does sound offbeat I grant you this, but something in me seems to sense that we only truly live in the world we are able to see and perceive, and somehow, in an intricate and elaborate plan, this world only truly exists through our own perception of it. There probably isn’t a definite objectivity we can ever grasp, and if there is one, it’s most certainly always out of our reach. Character, personality and perception seem to be the forging force at the setting of our own circumstances. The primordial utensil we rely on, is at the same time that from which we must naturally escape in search of a true essence of being (or non-being).The world we envision is there only to the extent of our desire..

Richard Collier wanted so much, and so passionately, to meet Elise, that he did in fact travel to a reality where they both could co-exist. How he did it defies logic, but then again logic is a process of thought within a limited system computed to our own limited understanding of things. It doesn’t quite matter to understand how this was possible in practical terms, and I praise the scriptwriter for giving us as little insight as possible on this matter, because what actually prevails in this story, is the overwhelming genuine essence of passion, which enables the impossible to happen.

Those who will question the why’s and how’s of the story, will miss the point entirely. The first step to enjoy this film, is quite simply to believe in it, become Collier..  Once we take this step, and if there is an inkling of passion in us, we will, as Collier, wish to never wake up again. “Somewhere in time” is a story of passion and dreams, a story of defying logic, if only for a brief moment. It’s this “leap of faith” often talked about and rarely taken, it embodies long forgotten dreams most commonly found in early childhood memories. “Somewhere in time” is devoid of the artistry of Erice or Tarkovsky, yet it reaches the same plateau in that it claims a life of its own once you allow its magic to unfold.





Trailer:






RELEASED: October 1980
Director: Jeannot Szwarc
Running Time: 103 mn
Cast: Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour

Rating: 4 stars



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