by Josef Steiff
Nadine jumps up.
INT. KOPERNIKREV BRIDGE
Everyone is trying to speak at once, crowded around the communications console, Heintz’s smiling face filling the monitor as he patiently tries to answer their questions. Nadine presses her hand to the monitor as if to touch his face.
HEINTZ
None of the Pods or ships are working. So I guess you’ll just have to come and get me.
Bayes pulls Zeh aside as Nadine talks with Heintz.
BAYES
I’m not sure going over there is such a good idea. You should take a look at the video logs. That ...
Bayes glances at Heintz’s face in the monitor and lowers his voice:
BAYES (CONT’D)
... ship is not what it seems.
ZEH
Which is why I’m going to lead the rescue. And Nadine will second.
BAYES
Nadine?
ZEH
You think she’s going to wait here?
EXT. KOPERNIKREV
The Launch Bay doors open, and two white ball-shaped Life Pods exit to make their way into the Sargasso.
ZEH
(off screen)
What about the rest of the crew?
HEINTZ
(off screen)
I’m afraid they didn’t make it.
EXT. THE ROSE
The Life Pods dock with the Rose, a space station nearly the size of an asteroid and comprised of hundreds of derelict spaceships.
INT. THE ROSE LANDING BAY
Massive doors close above the Pods as air begins to be pumped into the landing bay.
The circular hatch of each Pod opens. Nadine steps out of one, and Zeh steps out of the other.
INT. KOPERNIKREV LAB
Bayes and Escher stare at the monitor screen, replaying the one short segment of the Corona’s logs they were watching earlier:
VIDEO:
Heintz kneels on the sidewalk, sobbing, trying over and over in an endless loop to scoop up Emily and cradle her, but his hands pass right through her as if she were unreal.
BACK TO LAB
Bayes pushes himself back from the console and turns to face Escher.
BAYES
What if it’s not a hologram they’re influencing, but reality itself.
ESCHER
You can’t wrap your head around the idea that the viewer can change a work of art, but now you’re proposing that an observer can change reality?
BAYES
Quantum physics would not find that so strange. Besides, art is not separate from reality, it is a part of reality.
ESCHER
But the idea of observer-affected reality has only been demonstrated on the subatomic level, not in the every day world. Next you’re going to go on about Decay/Dead cats and NoDecay/NotDead cats.
BAYES
Schrödinger’s thought experiment is simply a way of demonstrating the paradoxes inherent in our current understanding of probability. But there’s little dispute that at the subatomic level, the act of observing changes the reality one observes. It’s kind of like ...
Bayes presses the play button, allowing the video to break its loop and play forward, as Bayes narrates the images on the monitor.
BAYES (CONT’D)
At first, Heintz is unable to pick up the dead Emily because she is just one of two possibilities. But watch what happens. Eventually, his insistence makes her real, tangible enough that he can pick her up and hold her. But when she becomes real, the other possibility, the Emily standing in the doorway of the house collapses and disintegrates. She can no longer exist.
ESCHER
The cat is either alive. Or dead.
INT. ROSE LANDING BAY
Nadine and Zeh shed their helmets and lock them in the Pods. Zeh’s comm unit bursts with static and a distorted voice.
BAYES
(off screen)
... Zeh ... you need ... get out ... not ... Heintz ... real ...
Zeh stops, trying to concentrate on Bayes’ voice, to decipher the words.
Undeterred, Nadine heads towards the main hatch. The door slides open to reveal the Great Hall. But rather than the grand Victorian decor seen in the Corona’s logs, the decor is now more modern and minimal.
ZEH
Nadine. Wait.
Nadine steps into the cavernous empty space.
Zeh runs after her but the door seals shut before he can reach it.
INT. THE ROSE GREAT HALL
Nadine tries to open the door, but no luck. She presses her ear against the door and calls out Zeh’s name, but there is no response. She tries her comm unit, but all she gets is static.
Nadine steps back and looks around the huge hall.
NADINE
Heintz? Heintz?
HEINTZ
Right here.
Nadine spins around to find Heintz standing right behind her. She rushes to him and hugs him.
NADINE
Help me get this door open.
INT. THE ROSE LANDING BAY
Zeh pounds on the door to no avail. He tries the comm but no response. The bay is eerily quite, until Zeh hears the ominous sound of air leaking out into the vacuum.
INT. THE ROSE GREAT HALL
Nadine pulls back from Heintz.
NADINE
What’s wrong?
HEINTZ
Nothing, now that you’re here. I’ve been lonely. And your love is so powerful. Like mine.
NADINE
Are you okay? I’ve never known you to ...
Suddenly a small hand tugs on Nadine’s leg, and she looks down into the eyes of her daughter, Emily.
EMILY
Mommy? Oh, mommy.
NADINE
This is not real. It can’t be.
Nadine looks at Heintz with dawning awareness.
INT. THE ROSE LANDING BAY
Zeh struggles to get to his Pod, but the force of venting atmosphere yanks him up and out into space.
INT. THE ROSE GREAT HALL
Nadine takes a step back from Heintz, ignoring Emily’s pleas.
NADINE
You’re not Heintz.
Heintz’s form flickers and then shifts to Eva’s visage.
EVA
I can be whatever you want me to be.
NADINE
Who are you really?
EVA
I am Eva Friedel.
NADINE
I don’t think so.
EVA
I am Eva Friedel.
NADINE
Show me where you live.
EVA
I live here.
NADINE
No, where you sleep.
INT. KOPERNIKREV BRIDGE
Alarms clang as the magnetic field strengthens and begins to pull the Kopernikrev towards the Sargasso.
Escher and Bayes scramble in their efforts to turn the ship away from the edge of the Sargasso.
INT. THE ROSE BEDROOM
Skeletal remains occupy the small bed.
NADINE
Who is that?
EVA
She is in cold sleep.
NADINE
But who is she?
Eva does not answer.
NADINE (CONT’D)
You are not Eva. She is. Or was.
EVA
I am Eva.
NADINE
No. Eva was the artist. You’re just her creation. Like a song.
EVA
I am Eva.
NADINE
You are just an expression of her memories through the circuits and hard drives of a computer. You are simply the product of science.
EVA
Art and science are not as distinct from each other as you might like to think. Ancient Greeks saw both as equally valid ways to understand the world around them.
NADINE
You are a machine. That’s the reality here.
Eva flickers, and for a moment, Heintz appears in her place, but the image glitches
and is Eva again. Nadine points at the skeleton.
NADINE (CONT’D)
That is Eva. Or what is left of her.
EVA
I am. I. I am. Eva. I am ...
Eva’s voice changes, deepens.
EVA (CONT’D)
Luncheon is served, Madam. Serve.
NADINE
You are the ship’s AI. What did Eva call you? You are not Eva. And she is not in cold sleep. What did she call you? What name did Eva know you by?
EVA
I am ... SAM.
With this admission, the air pressure and centrifugal force begins to erode. As the Rose breaks apart, Nadine’s increasing weightlessness allows her to push herself off bulkheads as they shift and collapse, propelling herself much faster than she could run.
INT. THE ROSE LANDING BAY
Nadine is fully weightless as she propels herself towards her Pod.
EXT. SARGASSO SPACE
The Pod struggles to reach escape velocity as the magnetic field fluctuates, pulling debris from all directions in an attempt to drag the Pod back towards the disintegrating Rose.
INT. LIFE POD
Within sight of the Kopernikrev, the Pod has clearly lost its battle and begins slipping back towards the magnetic center of the debris field.
Now helmeted, Nadine vents the Pod’s atmosphere and opens the door into space. She grabs a tether gun and steps out into the void.
Nadine uses her legs to give herself one strong push towards the Kopernikrev.
INT. KOPERNIKREV BRIDGE
Bayes and Escher see Nadine’s attempt to reach the ship and reduce the Kopernikrev’s thrusters, allowing it to drift back towards her.
EXT. SARGASSO SPACE
Nadine aims her tether gun and fires. A long string shoots across the gap between her and the ship, it’s flat end finding and sticking to the Kopernikrev’s hull.
As she follows the tether towards safety, she sees a spacesuit floating at the edge of her peripheral vision.
EXT. SARGASSO SPACE
Nadine pulls the floating astronaut towards her and spins him around so that she can see the nameplate. “Beckner.”
NADINE
Heintz. I’m here.
She struggles to pull the floating form upright, but as they align helmet-to-helmet, instead of Heintz’s face, Nadine can only see hers reflected in his faceplate. His sun shield is activated, preventing her from seeing inside the helmet.
INT. KOPERNIKREV AIRLOCK
Nadine drags the suited figure into the airlock, closing and sealing the hatch behind her.
The whooshing of incoming air signals the lock’s re-pressurization, and Nadine takes off her helmet.
She cradles Heintz for a moment before gently laying him on the deck. She tries to deactivate the visor’s sun shield, but its reflective opaqueness remains, hiding Heintz’s face from her eyes.
Nadine takes a deep breath. Her fingers reach to unlock the seals that join the helmet to Heintz’s space suit.
For a moment, the flecks of gold in the iris of Nadine’s eyes resemble a constellation of stars, like a universe that holds its breath, waiting to see which wave will collapse, which probability will become real.
© 2010. Josef Steiff. “Eye Am.” Anime and Philosophy: Wide Eyed Wonder.
Spirit
7
Nothing that Happens Is Ever Forgotten
CARI CALLIS
Hell bent on getting to their new house in the suburbs before the movers arrive, the Ogino family—in their Audi A4, surrounded by shopping bags and junk food wrappers—take a “wrong” turn and end up in the Shinto inspired world of the kami. Unfortunately for the parents, their greed and ignorance get them turned into pigs and the only hope they have of rescue is going to have to come from their ten year old daughter Chihiro. And she didn’t want to move in the first place. The farewell flowers her friends gave her are already wilting, just like their memory of her. And now she’s got to start all over in a new school, in a new house, and make new friends and well let’s face it, it doesn’t get much worse than that.
The notion that it could actually get worse karate chops her upside the head, and she’s got to work in a bathhouse and survive in a new reality, where all the rules have changed. She’s The Littlest Prince, Alice in Wonderland, and a little bit of Edward Scissorhands all rolled into one big ball of existential angst. Like a larger version of the little soot balls she has to contend with when she gets her first task in the boiler room of the bathhouse. We fall in love with her the minute she rescues one of those little soot-sprites, even though it causes a bit of chaos in the delivery of the fuel for the bathhouse, when the “slaves” stage a rebellion and all pretend they’re unable to work because they’re overburdened by the soot they have to carry. But the little dirt balls decide they like her for helping one of their own, and she takes her first step in thinking of others before herself.
As Chihiro grows to understand the world around her she also begins to understand the value of her name and how to serve others. And maybe one of the reasons Hayao Miyazaki’s Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, or Spirited Away as it was called when it was dubbed into English and released by Disney, has such a universal appeal is because it is about a child teaching those around her how to remember that the most important thing we can do is to love.
Fiction and Contradiction
Do we really need to be reminded that greed and materialism defeat us, that taking our environment for granted and abusing it harms our relationships to each other and to our quality of life? That our connectedness—to family, community, the ancestors, nature and all of the kami spirits who reside where they are not visible—are important to who we are as individuals and in defining our cultural identity? That hard work, ritual and purification can create a causal reaction in the physical body and initiate profound changes in healing, mental balance and emotional stability? That our capacity and ability to love is the most important thing we can do? That all of us are separate and yet interconnected to the earth, and with each other through our relationships?
Hayao Miyazaki thinks we do. And he speaks directly to Japanese young people. His films, TV series, and manga are conceived by, for, and about Japanese culture. As he’s made clear in interviews, he appreciates that other cultures find meaning in his stories, but his audience is mainly children, specifically Japanese (with the noted exception of Porco Rosso which was conceived for adults). What did he think of Spirited Away, the American dubbed version of his modern folktale? He has no idea; he had nothing to do with it and hasn’t seen it. In fact, the only time he watches one of his completed films is when he sits down with the staff, and they screen it together. And why would he, having hand drawn of all of the storyboards himself with only a team of hand picked and trained animators to complete the story production? He isn’t much interested in what CGI can do either; he’s a pencil guy by nature, working without a script, flying by the seat of his pants. So what are we to make of someone who constructs a film using Shinto iconography, values, and ritual in his work and yet insists that his use of it is meant to make us feel Shinto rather than inspiring any militaristic or political unification ideals? When asked point blank about its use in Spirited Away he says: My understanding of the history of Shinto is that many centuries ago the originators of Japan used Shinto to unify the country, and that it then ended up inspiring many wars of aggression against our neighbors. So, there is still a great deal of ambiguity and contradiction within Japan about our relationship to Shinto, many wish to deny it, reject it. My feeling is that I have a very warm appreciation for the various, very humble rural Shinto rituals that continue to this day throughout rural Japan. Especially one ritual that takes place on the solstice when the villagers call forth all of the local Gods and invite them to bathe in their baths. (2002 Press Conference for the premier of Spirited Away)
