Film Review: Source Code

Review: Source Code. Liked it. Thumbs up, B+. 4 Stars out of 5.




This is like the Matrix crossed with the Bourne movies, but better, in that the "matrixy" aspect of this film doesn't suck, and is actually almost coherent and mildly intriguing, as opposed to merely unspooling into puerile stupidity like the Matrix trilogy does.

(I saw only one and a half of those three films, by the way. Mildly enjoyed the first one, but then fell asleep in the theater during the second, an honor I think is only shared by that Vanilla Ice film that came out back in 1991 - I saw it in Izmir, and fell asleep after 15 minutes.. )

The basic plot of the film is this: they've developed technology called the "source code" that allows us to project the mind of someone with similar biological parameters back upon "the halo" left in time of that person's consciousness for eight minutes before their death.

Or something like that.

If you accept this conceit, and are able to suspend disbelief that much, the rest of film is pretty straight forward.

Jake Gyllenhaal's character is sent back to inhabit the mind of a man on a train about to be destroyed by a terrorist bombing. In the beginning he doesn't understand what is happening to him, and is repeatedly blown up, each time to again be re-sent into that same eight minute time frame to investigate and discover who left the bomb, and what his plans for future mayhem are.. He's a detective feeding information to his handlers who control the "source code" and who interrogate him at the end of each of his subsequent missions into the code.

Like Jason Bourne, he's an almost clean slate within the immediate narrative arc. He knows his name, remembers that he's a captain in the Army who last he can remember was in Afghanistan flying helicopters.. He has no idea how he ended up in the situation he's in, getting sent back repeatedly onto this train.

Each time he gets set into the source code, he is in the same moment, but is able to use knowledge acquired in previous sorties to delve deeper into the situation, and further understand what is happening. He not only figures out what is happening on the train, but also starts to piece together the larger context, and understand things about himself he didn't know before.

Storytelling 101. Nicely done.

Jake's character's mind is able to retain memories of his previous experiences in the "source code" and in this the narrative emerges.

There's a nice twist at the end of the movie that I did not expect, that knocks it all up a level and makes the entire plot even a little more interesting.


In sum, this film, like the Matrix, is a gnostic fantasy, in which the material world is reduced to a numerical "matrix," the "source code." In this the mind is more real than matter, and in fact the mind eventually escapes matter altogether, becoming an angelic intelligence. The self is also reduced to consciousness, to thought and memory, and is in a perfect Cartesian fashion ontologically and existentially alienated from the body, which is finally understood to be a passing illusion like all other matter.

The real is knowledge and numbers. The "code" or "program." The material is a passing and imperfect illusion to be manipulated by the mind through accumulated knowledge and understanding.

The fact that each time he reenters the source code he has only eight minutes of halo to work with before the source code resets, is of course a numerological trope.

The shape of the number 8 is itself the infinity sign. The snake eating itself, time folding back in itself. The Resurrection of Christ occurs on the first day of the week, which is to say the day after the end of the beginning, the renewal after death.. The seventh day consummates time in rest, which is death, but is recapitulated in the the first of the new week which is also eighth day. There were also eight people on Noah's Ark, when God "reset" creation. I think there is much more esoteric meaning to that number, but can't be bothered to delve into that now.

If you stop the film at the beginning of the preview clip I post here above on the part around the 20 second mark where his watch is shown, you'll notice that he "comes to" at 8:40 am. Forty is 8 times 5. 5 is death. Friday (the day of the Crucifixion) is the Christian fifth or Jewish sixth day. Christ bore five wounds (each hand, each foot, the spear in his side. My blog thematically commemorates his head being left alone, and only crowned with thorns..)


His release comes at 8:48 am. 8 6 times 8.


It also occurs to me that Jake's character's name "Captain Stevens" which may possibly be a reference to the proto-martyr St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr whose feast is the day after Christmas. The man whose body he inhabits is named Sean, which is a Gaelic corruption of the French Jean or English John, which comes from the Hebrew "God is Gracious," and is of course the name of the "Forerunner" John the Baptist who baptizes with water (symbolizing death and rebirth) as well as John the Apostle, the only apostle who did not run away during the Crucifixion, but who stayed at the foot of the Cross. The Apostle John is also the only one of the apostles to die a natural death, the only one not to be finally martyred..

Furthermore, the girl Captain Stevens wants to "save" is named "Christina.."

(Christina being played by the very foxy Michelle Monaghan.. Note also that Vera Farmiga, playing the air force officer running the source code computer is also beautiful as always..)

The bomb is a release in fire, pentecostal (by 10 by 5) or something like that..


All of these details may take on a certain symbolic resonance after you've seen the film.


I'm a neophyte at all of this, fill in the punchlines for me, please.


My point is that the filmmaker's clearly a clever fellow, and I appreciate that.



So, the entire film is mildly entertaining, as well as another testament to our cultural fascination with computers and faith in progress.


Worth seeing, in other words.



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