Contact

This week's old movie from the library was Contact ...

a 1997 American science fiction drama film adapted from the Carl Sagan novel of the same name and directed by Robert Zemeckis. Both Sagan and wife Ann Druyan wrote the story outline for the film adaptation of Contact. Jodie Foster portrays the film's protagonist, Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway, a SETI scientist who finds strong evidence of extraterrestrial life and is chosen to make first contact. The film also stars Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, Tom Skerritt, William Fichtner, John Hurt, Angela Bassett, and David Morse.



I did read the novel from which the movie was adapted and it was pretty different. Still, I do like the movie very much - I identified with Foster's character when she saidd "For as long as I can remember, I've been searching for something, some reason why we're here." And when someone cheated her out of her chance to use the alien travel device and told her "I wish the world was a place where fair was the bottom line ... Unfortunately, we don't live in that world.", I agreed with her answer: "I've always believed that the world is what we make of it."

The way she described her alien contact experience reminded me of my retreat conversion experience ...

"I had an experience. I can't prove it, I can't even explain it, but everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am, tells me that it was real. I was given something wonderful, something that changed me forever. A vision of the universe, that tells us, undeniably, how tiny and insignificant and how rare and precious we all are. A vision that tells us that we belong to something that is greater then ourselves, that we are not, that none of us, are alone. I wish I could share that. I wish that everyone, if even for one moment, could feel that awe and humility, and hope ..."



If you haven't yet seen it, you might like it :)