This is somewhat of a belated review of the movie “Oblivion” starring Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko, and Andrea Riseborough that was released in 2013.
I first watched this movie 3 or 4 months ago and while it was “good”, it did not make much of an impression or stick with me. I wrote nothing about it at the time and did not delve further into the soundtrack. If somebody would have asked have you seen any good movies lately, I would have responded with a flat “no” and disregarded this movie completely.
Until now.
Recently, I have had random images of lost and abandoned ships in the desert or the sky empty except for “them”. As everything happens for a reason, I worked to figure out where these images and thoughts came from, and determined it was from “Oblivion”.
This is why it has become my favorite movie and the reason I am listening to the soundtrack while trying to find the right words. It seeped into my thoughts and subconcious.
For me the synopsis of the movie is clutching to memories, no matter how distant or esoteric, and knowing they are part of you from somewhere. To have the determination to find your roots and follow what consumes you, be it your dreams, a face, something unknown. Through the isolation, the desolation, and rawness we live within, we are born within, we are forced into simplicity, into ourselves to find the answers and the path. The dream from each evening bleeds into each day and we begin to see faces, moments, and fragments that over time we start piecing together. We think maybe this is a part of myself, this is who I was and now who I am.
This landscape is my empty field.
The aliens in his movie are never shown, but are implied based on the events and the narrative. They are in control, they have covered eyes with a veil, and wiped clean the mind, the memories, the spirit. But that spirit can only be suppressed, not deleted forever, and over time, it will come back, it will return home.
