Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Omar Epps, Kate Walsh, Angus Macfadyen, Jorja Fox, Miranda Cosgrove, Enver Giokai, Haaz Sleiman, Emma Hebda, Audrey Loove, Faith Alexis Oliver, Sara Tomko.
When the world dies screaming, when it cracks open like an egg and all that remains is dust and fragments of what was once our home, only then shall we truly know ourselves. If we witness this momentous occasion from the depths of space, only then shall we realise that the Universe is a place where we have no right to be.
It is in the feeling of being unable to help, to save anyone that is the basis of the film 3022, that being stuck in your own bubble, as millions have been for the last nine months, is to watch others suffer and realise that it is impossible to save them all; but you might be able to save one, one single person apart from yourself, and it is in that hope that we cling to in the event of any natural disaster that threatens to overwhelm us.
Five years into a mission to the colony on one of Jupiter’s moons, John Laine and his crew, already suffering from the effects of isolation in space, feel the after effects of Earth being torn apart by forces which are never truly solved, and it is in this sense of uniformed anguish that drives them to confront the possibility that they are the final human beings left alive.
We take for granted in our modern society that in times of absolute stress, the constant fear of what may have happened to our friends, our neighbours, the family we care for, that we have ways and means to keep in contact, to hear their voices, see their faces as they experience the same challenges and emotions that we are undergoing. It is in this shared aspect afforded us by technology that has perhaps kept us sane, complete, human. However, take that away, add the distance that must have been felt during times for example of great plagues, the Blitz, of any uncertainty which kept you from those you loved, and you are left with a single basic instinct becoming unhinged, that of hope eroding away as the signals from others become less clear, relayed less often.
3022 maybe a piece of fiction, but wipe away at the surface, get past the idea of the superficiality to which space alludes, and what you are left with is a truth that humanity does its best to ignore, that we are completely alone in the world, unless we reach out and find that one hand in which to give us hope.
A film that makes the most of contraction, of narrowing every view down to its basic level, and then allowing a brief moment in which the viewer’s mind is widened; shrewd and intelligent, but one that suffers from its lack of personality and nature to which many will shy away from.
Ian D. Hall