I loved this movie. I appreciated seeing the lush landscapes of the Ethiopian highlands, the quartz deposits in the desert, and the abandoned train yard in Addis Ababa used as the backdrop for this movie. This is a memorable film filled with remarkable imagery that will stick with you for a long time.
Other user reviews have summarized the plot quite nicely, so I will not duplicate their efforts here. At its heart, the film is a gentle and charming SciFi love story. I do want to add, though, that I did *not* find the movie as obtuse or abstract as some of the other reviewers did. Perhaps it is because of my middle eastern heritage and an implicit understanding of allegory in Arabic/Amharic traditions that this film resonated so deeply with me.
While the movie is open to many interpretations, my reading of it was as an allegory for a spiritual journey that ultimately leads to disillusionment with the divine, and a return to finding love and contentment in the here and now.
**** Spoiler Alert ***** My explanation of the film and its meaning would be that Candy is an imperfect man barely existing in an apocalyptic wasteland who has created a narrative in his own mind that he is from another planet. He believes in a supernatural presence that has been dormant in his adult life (the spaceship), but is now reawakening. This reawakening is coincident with the pregnancy of Candy's partner, the beautiful and superficially perfect Birdy.
Candy becomes obsessed with the supernatural - the spaceship, why it is reawakening at this time, and its potential to take him and his family to another planet where he will be recognized as a superman, of sorts. This results in Candy undertaking an odyssey to understand and come closer to the supernatural. Eventually, he comes to view the Santa Claus character as an oracle of the divine. Just as Santa Claus is a secular symbol for Christmas that serves as a connector to a deeper religious tradition, Candy believes that the Santa Claus character can somehow connect him to the spaceship (the divine).
After a long journey, he eventually locates the Santa Claus oracle, and engages in a physical confrontation, which leads to him understanding that there is no connection to the divine through this man, whom he discovers to simply be a tired old man living out his own fantasy. The fact that he can communicate with Birdy and Candy through the mechanical system in the abandoned bowling alley is a humorous detail that furthers the narrative, but also may represent tradition and societal norms. (There is a lot of humor in this film - I loved the shrine to Michael Jordan and the use of Michael Jackson records as currency!)
After his encounter with the Santa character, Candy stumbles upon a movie theater that has been showing a Turkish Superman movie continuously for 40 years. The now-blind projectionist recognizes Candy and informs him that Candy used to come see the movie with his father when he was very young. He is told that his father moved him to the countryside for his own safety before he died, apparently when Candy was still quite young. We later see Candy throwing his Superman costume in the lake in a state of disillusionment. He now realizes how he invented his Superman narrative.....
The film ends with Candy returning to his beloved Birdy. They spin together on a dilapidated rocker/swing, perhaps representing the passage of time as they grow old together. One reading of the moral underlying the narrative is that the enlightened live and love in the here and now, rather than pining after myths and the supernatural.
Just my $2.00E-2 worth!!
Other user reviews have summarized the plot quite nicely, so I will not duplicate their efforts here. At its heart, the film is a gentle and charming SciFi love story. I do want to add, though, that I did *not* find the movie as obtuse or abstract as some of the other reviewers did. Perhaps it is because of my middle eastern heritage and an implicit understanding of allegory in Arabic/Amharic traditions that this film resonated so deeply with me.
While the movie is open to many interpretations, my reading of it was as an allegory for a spiritual journey that ultimately leads to disillusionment with the divine, and a return to finding love and contentment in the here and now.
**** Spoiler Alert ***** My explanation of the film and its meaning would be that Candy is an imperfect man barely existing in an apocalyptic wasteland who has created a narrative in his own mind that he is from another planet. He believes in a supernatural presence that has been dormant in his adult life (the spaceship), but is now reawakening. This reawakening is coincident with the pregnancy of Candy's partner, the beautiful and superficially perfect Birdy.
Candy becomes obsessed with the supernatural - the spaceship, why it is reawakening at this time, and its potential to take him and his family to another planet where he will be recognized as a superman, of sorts. This results in Candy undertaking an odyssey to understand and come closer to the supernatural. Eventually, he comes to view the Santa Claus character as an oracle of the divine. Just as Santa Claus is a secular symbol for Christmas that serves as a connector to a deeper religious tradition, Candy believes that the Santa Claus character can somehow connect him to the spaceship (the divine).
After a long journey, he eventually locates the Santa Claus oracle, and engages in a physical confrontation, which leads to him understanding that there is no connection to the divine through this man, whom he discovers to simply be a tired old man living out his own fantasy. The fact that he can communicate with Birdy and Candy through the mechanical system in the abandoned bowling alley is a humorous detail that furthers the narrative, but also may represent tradition and societal norms. (There is a lot of humor in this film - I loved the shrine to Michael Jordan and the use of Michael Jackson records as currency!)
After his encounter with the Santa character, Candy stumbles upon a movie theater that has been showing a Turkish Superman movie continuously for 40 years. The now-blind projectionist recognizes Candy and informs him that Candy used to come see the movie with his father when he was very young. He is told that his father moved him to the countryside for his own safety before he died, apparently when Candy was still quite young. We later see Candy throwing his Superman costume in the lake in a state of disillusionment. He now realizes how he invented his Superman narrative.....
The film ends with Candy returning to his beloved Birdy. They spin together on a dilapidated rocker/swing, perhaps representing the passage of time as they grow old together. One reading of the moral underlying the narrative is that the enlightened live and love in the here and now, rather than pining after myths and the supernatural.
Just my $2.00E-2 worth!!