This movie asks the question, "What would it be like to meet yourself?" But it also toys with the idea of fate, and trying to alter your course, and how maybe you're stuck with the life you have but changing your perspective makes all the difference. The choices you make have a ripple effect on others around you, and draws a larger pool than you could have imagined.
I think about my own life. My dad and sister being killed. Their deaths didn't just affect me and make me sad, but they also affect how I live my life. And how I live my life affects others. One night changed everything for me-- but maybe it changed nothing. Maybe I would be me anyway. Would I? Quite existential tonight, aren't I?
Anyway, just looked a bit more into the story of the Russian Cosmonaut (source). The real story is even "stranger than fiction"-- and in some ways, fits with the theme of the film. The real Russian Cosmonaut (or, at least one of them) was Vladimir Komarov. The Russians were racing the Americans to develop a space program. The plan was to have these guys go up and switch mid-flight. Komarov was to go first, but the space shuttle was poorly constructed. Komarov knew he was going to die, but suited up anyway because the alternate pilot-- Yuri Gagarin-- was his friend. And no one could stop the mission because no one dared approach Brezhnev.
No one can stop your life. You're speeding on a course that you didn't exactly pick and you can't derail yourself, and even if you manage to survive the crash, as you pick up the pieces you realize that there is nothing you can do to go back and undo what happened. You can't relive and undo your mistakes. You just have to move forward.
You can't hug them one last time. You can't stop them from going. You can't say, Just wait! Please! Don't go tonight! You don't need your hair cut. You don't need to go. Stay here. Stay with me. One more night. Please don't go. Please don't go.
I was going to be in the car that night. All set to go, excited to be with my big sister. I had my pink coat on. The soft one with the lamb stitched in the tag in the back. I am standing in the kitchen. It's December and dark outside. Jessie and Dad are standing in the hallway. The light is on. Mom is standing by the stove and tells me she's been thinking it over and has decided I should stay home after all. It's a school night and she doesn't know how late they'll be home. I'm mad and annoyed and frustrated but I can't argue. I say goodbye and hug them both. They leave. And I never see them again.
Except I do. I see them, puffy, pale, perfumed... lying so stiffly in the caskets. Jessie looks so different, and it's not just her hair shorter than the last time I saw it. She has makeup on-- more than she's ever worn before. It's caked on her face and looks awful. Her lips are a strange shade of peach. I remember watching her put on lip liner in the upstairs bathroom we shared. I watched, and ran into my room to grab a pencil. Except the pencil hurt my lips when I tried to press it to my mouth like she did. Jessie was frustrated with me for copying her. But I wanted to do everything she did, including follow her the last night she was alive to get her hair cut.
Even Dad has makeup on. I thought if I stared hard enough, I could see the necklace Jessie was wearing rise and fall. She wasn't dead! She wasn't dead! She was alive after all, it was all a big mistake and we could go home and forget the horrible event. Or, after they were burried-- the doorbell would ring and they would be at our front door, and it would turn out that it hand't been them in the accident-- that my real dad and sister were still alive somewhere, suffering from amnesia. And maybe it'd be awkward at first having them back, and maybe they wouldn't remember everything or remember me completely-- but that'd be ok, because they'd still be here, alive.
These were the fantasies I entertained. And still sometimes I slip back into these familiar dreams. But the problem with dreaming is that sometimes you let go of reality. And slipping away from the real world won't bring them back, but neither will it help me. I'm not an island. I have ripples spreading throughout this world. And if I'm conscious of these ripples-- that my life isn't solely my own, that I owe it to other people to fully engage in the present-- than maybe I'll help myself in the process.
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