Perhaps Robert Zemeckis (“Cast Away”) will go down in history as a director who, in his work, explored the cinematic limits of popular films to the hilt: after all, his works are usually not only technically brilliant, but often also involve an unusual plot an almost unbridled joy in technical experimentation. Zemeckis has what people in Berlin call a “traute” – he dares to do something!
With his mega hit “Back to the Future” he created an iconic time travel comedy that was so perfectly implemented technically and dramaturgically that it actually seemed believable. In “Wrong Game with Roger Rabbit” he brilliantly combined animation and live-action film, before his “Forrest Gump” with Tom Hanks as a lucky loser with a box of chocolates became a cinematic triumph: In it, Zemeckis used “deepfakes” alongside a number of other experimental methods, although The term only appeared on Reddit for the first time 23 years later.
“Here” always shows the same place over many millennia – and at some point there is a house there and we look right into the living room.
Exactly 30 years later, the “Forrest Gump” quartet around Robert Zemeckis, screenwriter Eric Roth and stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright are coming together for a new film – and now 72 years old, the director seems to have become even more willing to experiment: The Graphic -Novel adaptation “Here“ is the story of a spot just a few square meters in size that is captured with a permanently mounted, rigid camera. So there are no panning, panning, camera angles, zooms or visible cuts. Instead, tableaus. The perspective and the image detail remain the same.
Time, i.e. the history of the world and the people who live here, rushes through this place – starting with prehistoric times! At the beginning, a dinosaur stampede tramples through the jungle to its certain doom. Later the first people appear and an indigenous couple meets at this place. But the main part of the film takes place in the last 120 years, since the place the camera looks at is part of a house, more precisely: the living room. This makes it the pivotal point in the lives of the people who live “Here”. A place of joy, love, hope and suffering.
You've definitely never seen a film like this before
Time passes, the place stays the same – and at some point it becomes home. For the indigenous couple in love who mark the beginning of human settlement, as well as for everyone who follows them. “Here” combines a series of parallel small stories about families that are only connected by the setting and are told chronologically. Otherwise it's all over the place. There's something cocky about it, especially at the beginning – see the dinosaurs – as if Zemeckis wanted to show us, with a wink, what he's capable of. There are sometimes irritatingly quick changes, although the transitions are staged as artfully as they are varied. Sometimes the focus is on this family, sometimes that family – and in between there are always surprises in the form of new residents who only appear for a short time and then disappear again.
This applies to the black family with their fear of racist attacks as well as to the original builders of the house. The people change, their clothes change according to fashion, like the furnishings of the living room or the vehicles that pass outside. This is actually as attractive as it is varied, even if the jumps in time require a lot of attention – even the fixed camera is almost forgotten. This creates – like in the comic (» on Amazon*), where each panel is drawn from exactly the same perspective – a “peep box effect” that initially creates distance, similar to in the theater. As the film progresses, once you get used to the view, the distance disappears – and the characters get closer and closer to you.
Unfortunately, the de-aging of Tom Hanks and Robin Wright isn't exactly the film's greatest strength.
Additionally, there is a main story that ties everything together, with a sort of nuclear family. It consists of Richard (Tom Hanks) and Margaret (Robin Wright) as well as Richard's parents Al (Paul Bettany) and Rose (Kelly Reilly). Al and Rose move into the house after the Second World War – along with all their wishes and dreams. They have to say goodbye to most of them little by little. This is as normal as it is tragic. So Al comes home with war trauma and becomes an alcoholic. Paul Bettany plays him impressively with reserved melancholy. Rose tries to do everything right, Kelly Reilly plays her as a typically good wife with a subtle touch of rebellion. At 18, her son Richard has lofty plans that don't come to fruition. Because his girlfriend Margaret is pregnant, they get married in 1964 and they continue to live in the house with Al and Rose.
Richard and Margaret become the anchors because they essentially lead the way through the film. Tom Hanks plays the thankless role of an absolute normal guy, and he shows that he can do that too. Robin Wright has the more demanding task and gratefully accepts it. With the u.a. Using de-aging technology known from the Marvel universe, the stars were artificially rejuvenated for their roles using AI. It doesn't seem really natural, but there's still something touching, something very friendly about the interaction between the “Forrest Gump” couple, which certainly has something to do with nostalgia and the star appeal of the two. This even makes up for the fact that the artificially rejuvenated Tom Hanks looks nothing like the real, young Tom Hanks that many of us may remember.
What exactly is history?
People change over time. They get older, sometimes even wiser, and they adapt. But “Here” doesn’t actually tell the story of people, but rather, strictly speaking, the story of a place where there is a camera. And this story consists of the memories of people who lived in this place. Ultimately, the way we deal with time in the film reflects a concept of historical thinking that does not view history as a sequence of events and dates, but rather takes continuity and change into account and focuses on the connections between human coexistence.
This way of thinking about temporal processes essentially corresponds to the modern view of history and also has something philosophical about it. Especially since the idea of time runs like a common thread through Robert Zemeckis' work, and by that we don't just mean his “Back to the Future” trilogy: What do we do with time, and what does time do to us? Just as “Forrest Gump” looks back on a life full of strange coincidences, here it is a look at people’s everyday lives, which are sometimes cheerful and sometimes sad.
Conclusion: Many lives pass in front of the camera, and each one is unique, says “Here”, but the feelings are often very similar – and that starts with the dinosaurs. Robert Zemeckis has composed an entertaining film around a few square meters of lived US history, which – sometimes loud, sometimes quiet – increases in atmosphere and becomes really emotional towards the end. 3 stars plus 1 additional nostalgia star for the couple Robin Wright and Tom Hanks. Overall, a pretty successful senior teamwork: friendly, wise and mildly funny.