0629 – 2046 (2004)

spacetime coordinates: 2046 –  1960s Hong Kong – Singapore

Paragraph 201 in the Passengers’ Guide warns that Area 1224- 1225 is especially cold. The train heating won’t be strong enough. Passengers are advised to hug each other to keep warm.

2046 is a 2004 Hong Kong romantic drama film written and directed by Wong Kar-wai. It is a loose sequel to Wong’s films Days of Being Wild (1990) and In the Mood for Love (2000). It follows the aftermath of Chow Mo-wan’s unconsummated affair with Su Li-zhen in 1960s Hong Kong but also includes some science fiction elements and makes frequent references to the date of December 24 or Christmas Eve, on which many significant events in the film occur.

The main character (Tony Leung) writes science fiction stories, in which 2046 is a popular year and place to which people travel through time. The stories are titled 2046 and later 2047 (a collaboration with Faye Wong’s character). The year 2046 has its own significance for Hong Kong. It is 49 years after the handover of Hong Kong by the British on 1 July 1997. At the time of handover, the Mainland government promised fifty years of self-regulation for the former British colony. The year 2046 references the moment before Hong Kong’s special, self-regulated status ends.

The title may also be a reference to the Twilight Zone episode “The Lonely“, about a man sentenced to solitary confinement on a distant asteroid beginning in the year 2046. The isolated inmate falls in love with a gynoid that was delivered to keep him company. This plot structure parallels some of the science fiction motifs in Wong’s 2046. (wiki)

imdb

0615 – I Am Legend (2007)

spacetime coordinates: 2009 – 2012 New York City

I Am Legend is a 2007 American post-apocalyptic science fiction horror film based on the novel of the same name, directed by Francis Lawrence and starring Will Smith, who plays US Army virologist Robert Neville. The story is set in New York City after a virus, which was originally created to cure cancer, has wiped out most of mankind, leaving Neville as the last human in New York, other than nocturnal mutants.

“The film’s producers and sound people wanted the creatures in the movie to sound somewhat human, but not the standard”, so Mike Patton, lead singer of Faith No More, was engaged to provide the screams and howls of the infected.

In his vision of an empty New York, Lawrence cited John Ford as his influence: “We didn’t want to make an apocalyptic movie where the landscape felt apocalyptic. A lot of the movie takes place on a beautiful day. There’s something magical about the empty city as opposed to dark and scary that was the ideal that the cast and crew wanted.”

Director’s Cut ending

future   imdb

0591 – Space Station 76 (2014)

Space Station 76 is a 2014 American science fiction film directed by Jack Plotnick, and co-written by Plotnick, Jennifer Elise Cox, Sam Pancake, Kali Rocha, and Michael Stoyanov.

A dark comedy film that deconstructs seemingly idyllic relationships, set against the backdrop of Omega 76, a 1970s retro futuristic space station.

imdb   wiki

0561 – Naissance des pieuvres / Water Lilies (2007)

spacetime coordinates: 2000’s middle class suburb of Paris

Water Lilies (French: Naissance des Pieuvres; meaning “birth of the octopuses”) is a 2007 French drama film and the debut as a screenwriter and director of Céline Sciamma. The film tracks the sexual awakenings of three 15-year-old female friends in a middle class suburb of Paris over the course of a single summer. Finding privacy in the solitude of the swimming pool locker room, blossoming teens Marie (Pauline Acquart), Anne (Louise Blachère) and Floriane (Adèle Haenel) come to learn the true meaning of arousal and the power of sexual attraction.

imdb

556 – Warrior (2011)

spacetime coordinates: 2000’s pittsburgh / philadelphia / atlantic city

Warrior is a 2011 American sports drama film directed by Gavin O’Connor and starring Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton as two estranged brothers whose entrance into a mixed martial arts tournament makes them come to terms with their lives and each other. Nick Nolte was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the father of the two brothers.

imdb   themes – wiki

0531 – The Awakening (2011)

spacetime coordinates: boys’ boarding school in Cumbria 1921

“Maud Hill: There’s no place on earth people understand loneliness better than here.”

The Awakening is a 2011 British  supernatural thriller/ horror film directed and co-written by Nick Murphy, starring Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, Isaac Hempstead-Wright and Imelda Staunton.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1687901/

---

Down a Dark Hall (2018)

spacetime coordinates: 2010’s  exclusive Blackwood Boarding School

imdb   /   rottentomatoes

0493 – The Shape of Water (2017)

spacetime coordinates:  Baltimore during the Cold War  in 1962

The Shape of Water is a 2017 American fantasy drama film directed by Guillermo del Toro and written by del Toro and Vanessa Taylor. It stars Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Octavia Spencer. Set in Baltimore in 1962, the plot follows a mute custodian at a high-security government laboratory who falls in love with a captured humanoid-amphibian creature.

the film was primarily inspired by del Toro’s childhood memories of seeing Creature from the Black Lagoon and wanting to see Gill-man and Kay Lawrence (played by Julie Adams) succeed in their romance.

In an interview with IndieWire about the film, del Toro said, “This movie is a healing movie for me. … For nine movies I rephrased the fears of my childhood, the dreams of my childhood, and this is the first time I speak as an adult, about something that worries me as an adult. I speak about trust, otherness, sex, love, where we’re going. These are not concerns that I had when I was nine or seven.”

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5580390/