“The awe of the Universe”
Disclosure Day goes from a think piece into an action adventure in a zeptosecond, and along the way trains are wrecked, houses destroyed and many minds blown. And who is a better guide on our trip to salvation than Steven Spielberg.
I came away uplifted. Somebody was finally facing this issue, this data on universal life, which has been staring us in the face forever.
Disclosure Day is a big bite out of the cosmic apple even for Steven Spielberg who flips the script on Sci-Fi once again. References abound, from Close Encounter, ET, The X Files to name a few. The main concept can be previously seen in The Day The Earth Stood Still, 1951, a Robert Wise motion picture about other life forms reaching out to us. Who doesn’t love the silver metallic Gort?
Spielberg takes it one step further by telling everyone on the planet what we already feel in our bones. We are not alone. But it’s more than that. Spielberg starts out philosophically, but we soon realize the messages are spiritual. We see nuns clutching rosary beads, characters whispering prayers to God the Father in Latin.
“Man seeks the divine,” or does he?
I am postulating that Emily Blunt, in an Oscar worthy performance as Margaret Fairchild, seeks the divine after being chosen, like Mary the mother of Jesus, to enter the mysterious world of Universal power. Much like the Annunciation where Mary is chosen for a cosmic purpose, Margaret did not ask for this burden. Margaret’s “emotional telepathy”, the ability to see a person’s entire life story just by looking into their eyes, functions exactly like divine empathy.
Who else knows more about empathy, or how build to a spectacular conclusion better than Steven. He knows how to appeal to us through human nature. Just as in ET, empathy is at the core of the film.
Disclosure Day less a film about extraterrestrials and more a film about recovering our capacity for the sacred in a noisy world. And that interpretation fits remarkably well with Spielberg’s lifelong fascination with awe, mystery, and encounters with something greater than ourselves. All this and music by John Williams.
“We’re not here to understand them. We’re here to understand ourselves.”
–Sister Maura (Elizabeth Marvel) from Disclosure Day.
Commentary by Neil Healy
