Contact (1997)

reviewed by
Alexadnre Tylski


CONTACT. (1997)
Directed by Robert Zemeckis. 
Performed by Jodie Foster.
Music by Alan Silvestri. 

If we see Zemeckis' s career, we can say that this is a director quite interested in the themes of past and youth. In Forrest Gump or in the Back to the Future trilogy, those themes are explored in every way possible. With Contact, Zemeckis shows us again how essential is our knowledge of history and our ability to dream.

Contact is a high budget movie and what is quite surprising, is that it is an interesting film! Indeed, its secret aims have nothing to do with business, but with ideas. To serve some interesting reflections on religion, death or life, Zemeckis has hired a spectacular cast: Jodie Foster, Mathew McConaughey, James Woods, Tom Skeritt or Angela Bassett. Thus, the film is entertaining and can be appreciated by any kind of persons - even those who do not like science-fiction movies since that Contact is not really a movie dealing with extra-terrestrials or the discovery of space, but rather a (re)discovery of human kind, its history (references to Hitler notably) and its emotions. This is not only a spectacular film, it is an intimate one, an inner journey. Besides, it can be said that all the films Jodie Foster is used to playing in are kind of inner journeys. In this film, she really shines, as usual, and she succeeds in exploring her own emotions very deeply and those of the audience at the same time. Will she receive another Academy Award? She deserves it again anyway.

In Contact, the special effects are not there because it is up to date to make movies with special effects, but they really serve the aim of the film: searching for human basic feelings. It is even the paradox of the whole film: new technologies do not really transform us into machines, but make our reactions more human actually! When the E.T. signal is heard for the first time in the movie, the characters (and the audience) feel more human paradoxically, all excited like kids.

The word "kid" is obviously a key-word for describing Contact. Just like Forrest, Foster's character is still a child, fragile but passionate. When we see Contact, we feel the same emotions we had when very young. That is all the magic and the interest of this movie. The film is a homage to the power of imagination. Besides, it has a magical and onirical atmosphere as if the whole movie was like a child dream. And as dreams always reveal who we are, Contact talks to all of us very deeply.


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