A few days ago I sat down to watch the movie, The Time Traveler's Wife. Personally, I loved the movie and thought it was extremely unique compared to other romantic movies I've seen. The film is about a man named Henry who has a special ability to time travel. He meets a girl named Claire when she is very young and continues to visit her during his time traveling episodes. He knows because he's seen it in the future that they will get married, but she has no clue. It's very confusing actually, but it's easy to look past that and focus on how great of a film it is.
Whenever Henry time travels, he just vanishes in mid air, leaving everything behind. The way these parts of a scene are edited is really interesting. Due to special effects, his face becomes see through and then the rest of his body just evaporates. Another film technique I witnessed in this movie is framing. There is a specific scene where their daughter, Alba is about 5 years old. She is also a time traveler and while Claire and Henry are inside their house, they see 5 year old Alba playing with a 12 year old Alba that traveled in time. The two Albas are being framed by a window as Claire and Henry look on in amazement.
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Though The Time Traveler’s Wife has a science fiction component of time travel, it is ultimately a film about love and loss. Henry DeTamble, a time traveler, “never wanted to have anything in [his] life that [he] couldn't stand losing,” but in the end he fell head over heels for Clare and has a daughter, Alba. He realized that the promise of love outweighed the risk of loss and the heartache the follows. However, Henry’s family has to deal with his loss instead of the other way around. But by the end of the film they realize “that he was always [there], even when he wasn't,” meaning he lives on within their hearts and comes alive through their memories.
ReplyDeleteFurther adding to the theme of love and loss is the music used . Music plays an important yet subtle role. Firstly, music is usually connected to the character's strongest memories of love and loss like when Henry and his mother sing in the car right before his death or Clare and Henry's first dance. More implicitly, the same background music always plays as Henry travels through time. Time travel revolves around "big events [that] pull you in." The biggest events are those revolving around love and loss. Henry has seen his mother die hundreds of times, and Alba has witnessed the death of her father by travelling back in time as well. Alba's time travel is even more related to big love and loss events because through singing she can choose what event she would like to travel back to or even stay in the present. Most commonly, she travels back to see her father and spend time basking in the love of her parents.