Back to the future

After last year’s brilliant science fiction epic Sunshine by Danny Boyle, the genre has received something of a fillip. The classics are all out on DVD now, and waiting for a new generation of viewers to fall in love with them. Here’s a pick of the best.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

This was a triumph for the ’60s, and 40 years on, it’s still nothing short of stunning. Those indelible images speak for themselves—the prehistoric apes shocked by the appearance of a perfect monolith from the skies and the dark, bleak spaces between stars.

The scope of this movie is nothing less than cosmic, and if the human characters look puny in comparison, then that’s a telling commentary on how insignificant we really are, and also how precious. The story—taken from Arthur C. Clarke’s The Sentinel—is fairly simple. The year is 2001, and space-travelling human kind is amazed by the appearance of a black monolith on the moon, the same as the one that shocked our ancestors all those eons ago. Questions are left unanswered in the movie, which makes watching this masterpiece all the more intriguing.

Warner Home Video; Price: Rs 1,079

Solaris (1972)

Masterful as Steven Soderberg’s 2002 remake (with George Clooney) of this cult Russian film was, it simply could not touch Andrei Tarkovsky’s original. Based on a novel by the same name by Stanislas Lem, much of the action in this movie takes place within the minds and emotions of the protagonists. A Russian space station is circling a mysterious planet called Solaris, which seems to be covered in one vast sentient ocean. And the planet can read the memories of the humans on the space station and create real people out of them.

A troubled psychologist is sent to the station to sort out the mystery of these strange “guests” as these sentient recreations are called. Obligingly, the planet presents him with a girl he had once loved and lost who had committed suicide. And here lies the movie’s true originality as it questions reality and being. Are we truly who we are or are we creatures made up of memories? The film provides a vividly real and three-dimensional view of human beings lost in the universe.

Criterion; Price: Rs 1,079

Blade Runner (1982)

Ridley Scott’s masterpiece is the ultimate sci-fi adventure, full of strange devices, a futuristic Los Angeles and some of the most original characters ever portrayed in any movie. Yet, like the multilayered novel (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick) which it takes inspiration from, Blade Runner is more than just an action-packed movie. Harrison Ford plays a sardonic, unhappy cop assigned to track down “replicants,” who are artificial humans.

They have a limited shelf life and a chip on their heads decides their life-span. After a rebellion, some replicants arrive on earth, led by their intelligent, psychotic leader (Rutger Hauer). For the most part, it’s a straightforward chase movie with unexpected twists like when Ford falls in love with a replicant (Sean Young) and is moved to question his own motives. The director’s cut issued on this 5-disc Collector’s Edition, makes a small change, which completely turns the movie on its head. This is the version that Scott would have released had it not been for greedy Hollywood executives.

Warner Bros.; Price: Rs 3,156