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Vanishing Waves
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| Year: |
2012
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Director: |
Kristina Buozyte
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| Stars: |
Marius Jampolskis, Jurga Jutaite, Rudolfas Jansonas, Vytautas Kaniusonis, Martina Jablonskyte, Darius Meskauskas, Sharunas Bartas, Brice Fournier, Philip Lenkowsky, Frédéric Andrau, Maciej Marczewski, Nicolas Simon, Arnoldas Eisimantas
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| Genre: |
Science Fiction, Romance |
| Rating: |
  6 (from 1 vote) |
| Review: |
These scientists have long been planning an experiment, and today it is about to begin as one of their number, a volunteer test subject called Lukas (Marius Jampolskis), prepares himself for immersion in the flotation tank with various electrodes geared to giving his brain the correct impulses. His girlfriend Lina (Maria Jablonskyte) has tried to help out, but she is feeling him grow distant from her as he becomes increasingly obsessed with the upcoming testing, though she has shaved his head for the preparation. But Lukas will find a more meaningful relationship than his one with her when he finally is left to navigate into the mind of the other test subject, a coma victim called Aurora (Jurga Jutaite)...
And Aurora was the original title of Vanishing Waves before it was changed, possibly because there are umpteen films called that, or possibly because of then-current events. Whichever, this was a story looking back to the past through the prism of the possible future when a person's mind is easily accessible through outside influence, rather than simply, I dunno, talking with them or something outrageous like that. The notion that we would find some fundamental truth with unfiltered access to the deepest thoughts and impulses of an individual is one which appeals to many, not least either outright nosey parkers or those who can use such information for political or commercial reasons.
So it seems the further we delved into the very heart of the mind (as opposed to the mind of the heart?) the more likely it would be we would attain some kind of absolute truth, more than a personality and aiming towards something universal. Which was noticeably connected to the concepts in the so-called "head movies" of the late nineteen-sixties and seventies, only instead of using meditation or even drugs to reach that state, here was a method applied with purest science, arguably taking over from psychedelics as the most obvious mind-expanding experience even if the final goals were much the same. In this plot, they have the excuse that the boffins are trying to help a woman trapped in a coma whose mind shows signs that she is active in thought if not in body.
When after a couple of tries Lukas breaks through to her, the first thing they do is not have a telepathic conversation about her situation, nope, before they have time to introduce one another they are getting it on in an intense sex scene, which points to director Kristina Buozyte (working with Bruno Samper on the creative side) wishing to elaborate on the romantic aspects, after all, how much more close could a man and woman get than actually entering their consciousness together? Therefore the ultimate trip, the most potent high, Lukas can achieve is to fall in love on this most heightened of levels, and like a user of any addictive drug he cannot wait to get more. That analogy goes further as his life begins to revolve around reaching into Aurora's head, leaving everything else neglected.
Including his relationship with Lina, yet while the visuals illustrate why this living dreamscape (if you like) would be so attractive to him, in a determinedly downbeat fashion the rest of the movie depicts a sterility of hospitals, laboratories and personal connections growing ever less defined. When Lukas sees what Aurora actually looks like, bedsore-afflicted, shaven-headed and utterly inert, at the mercy of tubes and monitors, it doesn't put him off, if anything he is dead set on rescuing her, which ironically pushes him further away from her as his mind self becomes less receptive to her and more violent to the point that she wants to get away from him: a compelling sequence late on makes that feeling into a bleak metaphor of chase imagery, the two leads running naked through the nighttime countryside, Aurora terrfiied and trying to escape, not simply from Lukas but from the responsibilities of life. This is all very well, and operates effectively enough on a cerebral plane, but Vanishing Waves is a chilly film in spite of the way it trades on torrid emotions. Music by Peter Von Poehl.
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| Reviewer: |
Graeme Clark
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