My Decade-Long Journey with Interstellar

I am not sure how this will turn out. It has been a few hours since I walked out of the IMAX screening of Interstellar. I am guessing this is going to turn out to be a glorified journal entry rather than anything cohesive (even after editing).

Early Fascination

Ever since I could remember, I have been fascinated by Astronomy. In fact, I do not remember a time where I had not known the names of the nine planets by-heart (yes, I knew the planets before Pluto was kicked out of the textbooks). I was part of an Astronomy Club at school that tried to make the field more exciting to school students. I even had the privilege of visiting NASA at Kennedy Space Center in Orlando, Florida (Thanks Dad, for paying for that!).
As I grew older, Astronomy was not just another branch of science to learn about. I started to derive a sense of spirituality looking up at the sky. The grandiosity of the majestic universe, the cycle of life and death of stars and star systems, that we are star-dust, the insignificance of Earth and the futility of our actions and our existence on it, in the grand backdrop of the universe. For a nerdy kid at school, a lot of my philosophical musings were derived from Astronomy.

I don’t vividly remember the first time I watched Interstellar. It might have been on the new plasma TV that we had bought or on a small 12-inch laptop screen? But what I do remember was watching a YouTube video featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson, explaining the physics behind the film. The next thing I remember is watching the film again with my cousins (their first time) and excitedly trying to paraphrase the things I had heard Dr. Tyson say in the video, acting all intellectual and superior to my cousins. This was because, back then due to the Dunning-Kruger effect, I had the confidence that I understood relativity and the physics behind the film was very obvious.

For the next 3-4 years or so, I might have re-watched the film a few times when it was on TV or just casually on my laptop. I don’t remember it anymore vividly than my first viewing of the film. And my opinion of the film stood the same till then. That the film was an intellectual one and that it was necessary to understands every nook and cranny of the physics involved to truly appreciate it. That I had achieved this and thus was superior to others who had not.
Side Note: I might be putting myself down a bit here. This superiority was mostly internal (not always). When I spoke about the filn with others, I usually focused on the spiritual aspect that I mentioned above and tried not to be an asshole about it. But as a teenager, you only have so much restraint.

The “Cinephile” Era and the Disillusionment

The next stage of my evolution with Interstellar came during my college days. I was beginning to discover more and more films from around the world. You could say I was becoming a “cinephile”, an insufferable one at that. I watched Bela Tarr, Lynch, Bergman, Kurosawa, Ray, Kubrick, watched films from many film movements from around the world. I found this very liberating and enlightening. This exposure infused in me a sense of empathy for my fellow humans and broadened my worldview on politics, history, culture, etc. The side effect, though, was the development of a new sense of superiority. Or maybe it was an extension from the one I already had?
Now it was that I could understand cinema more than others. These pesky normies who whine about the physics in Interstellar don't know and won't understand the nuanced portrayal of the human condition in Ray and Tarr’s films or the depth in the visuals and the visual poetry of Kurosawa, the way Bergman wrote his characters, etc. And thus began a new phase of life. A life of pretentiousness and a superiority complex, stemming from things I will discuss with a therapist (sorry)

This wasn't just a new phase in my life but also a new phase in my relationship with Interstellar. Now I did maintain Interstellar was a good film. But I started to disregard it in conversations with people for its lack of coherency? I am not sure where I pulled that out from? For its plot holes? For its reliance on the wow factor to work? For its corniness?

“Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends time and space.”?

Oh, come on! What juvenile bullshit, thought a 20 year old me.

Then came 2021. Tenet was about to be released amidst the pandemic and they were trying to bring people back to the theatres by re-releasing Nolan's older films. I had planned a “Tenet prep” as well and stepped out to watch Interstellar on IMAX. I stepped out with a lot of conflict in my head. I was about to watch a film that I had loved not a while back but now I had second thoughts and this had a major impact on my experience. I did not enjoy the film in this viewing. I mean there were parts that worked of course because at the end of the day it's a good film but I feel like I walked in to that theatre with a lot of baggage and I was not ready to give all that up, to let go and enjoy the film.

Rediscovery

If you’re still reading, why? I’ve lost the plot here. But the pressure is on! You need to deliver Harshith! ಏನ್ ಅಯ್ತು! ಆಮೇಲೆ ಏನ್ ಅಯ್ತು ಬೇಗ ಹೇಳು!

Fast forward to late 2023. I am done with college. Somehow found a job and after a rough few months at work, I was actually doing pretty well. My mental health was stable, courtesy of some help, and was generally had a much more relaxed take on life in general. The feeling of superiority, which was intrinsically tied to inferiorities that I have not mentioned here, had been acknowledged and was dealt with to a small degree. And naturally, this extended to my view of films as well.

So on 21st October 2023 (logged on my Letterboxd) I was looking for tickets to go to Killers of the Flower Moon, but the release had been delayed in India for a week. But I noticed there was a screening of Interstellar in the 4DX format.

Here we go again

My initial thought was that because I had never watched a film in the 4DX format before, why not give it a try with a film that I am very much familiar with? So, I can judge the format better and choose it or not for future film releases.
My judgement? 4DX sucks. The format screws with your experience and ruins the editing pattern of the films. When the film cuts between a location with a lot of movement and a location with stillness, your seats start shaking and stop shaking continuously, which gets really annoying.

Well, the main takeaway from this screening was not about the 4DX screen however. Tell me, how does a film, after you have watched it multiple times over almost a decade feel like a completely new film? How do you start feeling things that you have never felt in previous viewings of a film? But it happened.
For the first time, Interstellar’s magnificent depiction of the universe and the physics that governs it took a backseat. The film became about Coop and Murph. Coop’s struggle to get back to his kid on time and Murph’s struggle to come to terms with feeling her dad could have made her a false promise. Yes, I knew this was in the film all this while. And that other people felt this was the major anchor of the film. But I had never felt it and this was so fascinating. I had moments where I was almost moved to tears, but couldn’t fully reach there because the 4DX seats were being annoying.

Full Circle

Well now we somehow work ourselves into the climax. If you’re still with me, hi friend. Are you stuck in traffic or something?
The 2025 re-release of Interstellar made a big sound. Tickets are selling out in a jiffy. Even the 2D scope and the 4DX screens are getting filled. With all this hullabaloo, is it worth a re-watch? YOU BETCHA! After what I had been through a year and a half ago, I had to go re-visit this again, in the best way possible in India, on Lie-MAX. By the time I could book the tickets for the first day of the release, the good seats were already taken for all the shows for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Wow! That was a surprise. I thought for a bit. It was getting a little hectic at work and I had not taken an off since a long time. So, I decided to take leave on the Tuesday, 11th February and go watch Interstellar. I had other things planned for the day as well. Some shopping, some eating, etc.

Leading up to the D-day, I was kinda tense. Will the film work for me this time? If it doesn’t, what does the last watch that had such an impact mean? This led to questioning myself. Looking back at the journey I had had with this film and that made me even more tense. The film is so intrinsically tied to my personality and the way I look at the world, people and the relationships. I leave home early on the day, have some good masal dosey. And go to the theatre early. I take a seat and still feeling a little nervous. The film starts.

I had the feeling this is going to be a full circle moment very early on. As Coop, Murph and Tom start to chase the IAF drone they find and as “The Cornfield Chase” plays, tears started rolling in my eyes. I am not exaggerating here for dramatic effect or anything. I sobbed. I sobbed because that scene and that musical piece meant so much to me as a kid. Discovering something new, trying to solve a problem, succeeding and learning something new with it. As a 25 year old though, it meant all of those but also doing it with your parent. The scene establishes the connection Cooper has with his kids, especially Murph and in a nutshell, encompasses the whole film.

Interstellar is about parenting as well as about being a child. Nolan captures the feeling of a parent wanting to do everything in their power if it means their kids could lead a better life. But how many times have we seen this in our lives? Parents wanting to do something extraordinary for the future, but forget about the present? About just being there for your children? This comes out from the frustration shown by Murph. Oh, she needs to understand that her father is doing this for her own good, you say? Who decides what’s good for someone? If Murph wants to be with her father and not want him to go be a benevolent savior a bad thing? Who can say? It’s all part of life; that’s how parents are. No one’s perfect and everyone thinks the grass is greener on the other side.

Every time there is a setback in the Endurance missions, I was clenching my teeth! Cooper needs to keep his promise! All of Murph’s sanity depends on this! While I was awestruck by the majestic shots of Gargantua, the docking scene, etc. before, now they were touch-ups to polish the background of this father-daughter story. While the 23 years lost on Miller’s planet and the “echoed” okays sent by Miller’s ship, was such a sparkling illustration of one of the most brilliant and important breakthroughs of the 20th century, The General Theory of Relativity. It had stayed just that for most of my life. “Look how crazy relativity is”. But now, it had meaning, real human meaning. 23 years lost. A parent cannot see his children grow up. In fact, they are older than him now. How deep is that scar? I cannot begin to fathom.

I sobbed again when Dr. Mann hugs Cooper when he wakes up. The human desire to be held, to be loved, to be noticed. No amount of intellectualization can erase that. Dr. Brand’s strive to be united with her love Edmunds, no relativity can explain the love you have for someone in the past or the love we feel for someone far away or not even in existence.

Interstellar is about all this. About the importance of science and the scientific method, the disregard we as a society have started to show these things and where that might lead us, our frailty compared to the laws of nature. It is also is a film about love. Love that doesn’t not care about time, space, reality, causality. A promise that transcends space-time. And when all this hits the climactic moment when Cooper, still as young as he was when he left Earth meets his daughter Murph, almost on her deathbed, everything comes full circle. We are nobodies in this universe. What we think are set in stone, a father grows old and dies in the hands of her daughter? Not when relativity is involved.
But also, we are somebodys! We are the only witnesses to nature’s game, and we bring our own cards to this. A father makes sure to fulfill his promise across time and space, even if his daughter is now almost three times as old as him. A lover will remember you a trillion mile away, for the rest of her life.

As the credits rolled, I sat there sobbing for a few minutes. This was one of those cornerstone moments in my life, the culmination of a journey over ten years in the making. A journey of growth, loss, discovery and rediscovery. This is the impact art can have. You think you know something, that you’ve understood everything there is to know about it. But then you take another look, and it has morphed into something else. So go revisit that film, that book, that piece of art again. See what it tells you now.