Realive

Ambitious, not often successful story of a young man who made his way of life triumphantly,and who ,terminally-ill ,chooses cryogenic freeze , to be able to "realive" in the future when the science,in the shape of Dr West (a nod to the excellent "re-animator " feat. Jeffrey Combs ), is able to give him a second chance in another era .

Although there's numerous hints at religion (the Lazarus project :"lazarus ,come forth !"), the fact that immortality may make gain another world but lose your soul ;in fact ,you want to find back what you've lost , but time moves like a jet plane and it's a brand new world you have to face .

Thanks to a brand new technology ,you can record your memories (why not? A hundred years ago ,who would have thought of the computering revolution? ),but those memories are a jumble,for they come from every moment of your life ( cruelty to animals -the lizard and the hen-is gratuitous and pointless);besides , Naomi ,to do what she does ,must have experimented l'amour fou and nothing really shows it (unless a would be torrid sex scene counts);besides, Marc's impossibility to adapt himself to another way of life (the new sex lib is not that much new ,it recalls the hippies) is not fully exploited :it was already brillantly treated in Frankenheimer's sensational film ,"seconds"(1966)

This film is interesting but it is mainly a missed golden opportunity.

Marc Jarvis (Tom Hughes) is a rich, young, successful artist who is suddenly told that he has cancer and has at most a year to live. He decides to freeze his body in the hopes that future medicine can cure him, but his girlfriend Naomi (Oona Chaplin) is horrified that he means to take his own life in order to ensure that his body is in as good condition as possible when he dies. Nevertheless, he does just that… only to wake up some 60 years later; Dr. West (Barry Ward) and his team have learned, through trial and error, how to reanimate frozen humans. Marc is their first complete success, and with the help of nurse/assistant Elizabeth (Charlotte Le Bon), Marc struggles to find meaning in his new existence, while his long-ago past still pulls at his heart…. I'm not sure why this is a Spanish film as it's in English and features British actors; but, no matter. It's a really thoughtful science fiction film that addresses not only technological advances but the moral and ethical problems associated with them. I very much liked Tom Hughes (who looks a bit like Cillian Murphy) because he was able to take his character through a very complex maze of emotional realities; then again, everybody in this film is good. Interestingly, the problem of how to portray the future was solved by simply having Marc remain in the facility in which he was reborn, because his body was not strong enough (yet) to adapt to outside conditions; a neat explanation that means the viewer isn't taken out of the picture by seeing a future world that looks cheesy or contrived or otherwise unnatural. Well done, filmmakers!

So, a lot of people went into this movie expecting to be dazzled by hi- tech conceptualizations of the future, and were disappointed. That's understandable. The tech is a background at best, although every character does seem to blend seamlessly with it. It is a background that is tastefully crafted, realistically employed and never flickers.

To add insult to injury, however, the 2 hour hypotech is stuffed with sentimentality and philosophy, rather than action and sex, as many sci- fi's are. For most people, action and sex are a far better filler than the heartfelt musings of a struggling soul, regardless of the context.

For those of us not seeking to escape to the future, we were treated to a salient, cerebral wine-tasting, of sorts...and a sobering one at that. The film seems to offer up so many spiritual, cultural messages, from so many vantage points, that it's impossible to label one bottle and drink from it. For the single-minded it's a mess. For others, it's an awakening to new flavors of suffering, and a perversion of our taste buds. Some things, once sweet on our tongue, now stain with an aftertaste. Other drinks, like death, may now crisply tinkle in the glass and repel us a bit less.

All I'm saying is that this film is more art than entertainment. Some people drink wine to get drunk and have sex. Others sip it carefully to explore its variety. Realive is certainly a film for the sipping class.

When Marc Jarvis (Tom Hughes) is diagnosed of an incurable throat cancer, the plans his life to commit suicide and keep his body cryogenically frozen in the Progeny Company awaiting for technology to revive. In 2084, he becomes the first man to be successfully revived by Dr. West (Barry Ward) and his team. The nurse Elizabeth (Charlotte Le Bon) helps Marc in his recovery and he learns that his beloved lover Naomi (Oona Chaplin) did the same expecting to live with him in the future. However Marc finds previous fails in the project with several casualties. Further, he is losing his only belongings – his memories – and he does not recover his previous health. Out of the blue, Marc takes a decision for Naomi and him.

"Realive" is a thoughtful sci-fi by Mateo Gil, the writer of the magnificent "Abre los Ojos". The story is interesting, approaching themes like ethics, afterlife without the original memories, adaptation to a future society with different moral and behaviors and so on. However the narrative is too cold despite the intriguing screenplay and the film does not work well. Marc Javis and Naomi should have been better developed in the beginning in order to make these characters likable. The hot Charlotte Le Bon is also wasted in a very limited character. Anyway, the story is original and provides a different view of immortality that makes the viewer think. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): Not available

Essentially there is nothing wrong with this movie other than the basic plot of the story, which bogs down in a mire of pedestrian navel gazing.There is no sci-fi here really to speak of, the future world is only vaguely referred to inside of the reanimation clinic. On the plus side its visually great, and Québécois super hottie Charlotte Le Bon gets her bum out, that alone makes this a must-see.