“Realive” written and directed by Mateo Gil explores cancer, cryogenics and resuscitation while touching on resurrection and suicide. The emotional elements are all there. The questions are ever-present.
Marc Jarvis (Tom Hughes) is diagnosed with a cancer and is given one year to live. A successful businessman and artist, he has opportunities and choices not available to everyone. Unable to accept his own end, he researches cryogenics and decides to freeze his body. In the year 2084, sixty years later, he becomes the first man, in history, to be revived. His resurrection by Project Lazarus is a celebrated but deeply secret event for the ultra-rich. It is then he discovers that the love of his life, Naomi (Oona Chaplin), has accompanied him this entire time in a way that he’d never expected.
Marc Jarvis: “Maybe the soul I the bit that gets lost when you freeze the meat and thaw it out again.” Do you think that immortality is only a question of time?
We see the future through medical goggles. We don’t see cities, public places or even life in 2084. The entire future (except one scene) is shot in Project Lazarus medical facilities. Technology has obviously advanced but doesn’t seem too farfetched. We learn a little about culture and city life from conversations with the medical staff. Love and relationships seem to have gone by the wayside. You can alter your children with creepy (I am guessing in-utero) surgeries.
There is a heart and soul to the film. You can tell that Mateo Gil cares about the subject and put great thought into it. I think the flashbacks sometimes seem a little disjointed but maybe that is how they appear to Marc as well. It is not a fast flick. There are action scenes but also a lot of slower parts with long voice-overs.
The movie did leave me with some questions on the topics of cryogenics and resuscitation… What gives someone in the future the right to revive someone at any given time? Will you just be an experiment when someone in the future decides to revive you? Would you like to be revived knowing that you might be an experiment? What disabilities and limitations are acceptable for you to be revived? What life do you see on the other side of cryogenic freezing? Would you expect loved ones to follow?
I would recommend “Realive” if you are interested in seeing a drama. It is thought provoking and interesting. The opening scene is very graphic. The film is a lot more drama than sci-fi. It is filled with human emotion, relations, death and frustration. Check it out and let me know what you think. “Realive” opens in theaters today and hits VOD/Digital HD on October 3, 2017.
Realive:
Director: Mateo Gil
Writer Mateo Gil
Stars Tom Hughes, Charlotte Le Bon, Oona Chaplin, Barry Ward, Julio Perillán
Running Time 1h 52m
Genres Drama, Sci-Fi
