I just watched an almost forgotten sci-fi classic called Brainstorm. The story is about advanced research on telepathy and mind control that evolves into a secret black operation within the military industrial complex – code named Brainstorm. That’s the setting where the main character, Michael Brace played by Christopher Walken, explores the rabbit hole in the end of the film. Never knowing he’s being watched all the time and that the project has been hijacked long time ago.
His colleague, Lillian Reynolds (played by Louise Fletcher), dies and manages to record her experience by recording it, so Michael Brace plays that recording and gets to experience the journey to the hereafter. The final scenes with him experiencing the everlasting and endless bliss while his wife cries for him to come back is rather emotional in a peculiar way.
The film has some original visual effects and the phone booth uplink would later become famous in the Matrix films. This film starts off seriously and ends visually poetic, but near the end some goofballs are made and they mix somewhat bad in the directions the film takes. Unsuccessful humor mixed in the rather serious plot which you’ll notice if you watch the film.
Worth mentioning is the visual genius work of Doug Trumball, who did the special effects for films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner and The Tree of Life. He directed Brainstorm and good visual effects are noticeable in the beginning of the film and the end where the effects illustrate the quantum mind journey of experiencing someone else’s death. He was actually the son av Donald Trumball who did special effects for Wizard of Oz, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. This movie is worth watching and maybe there’ll be a remake or similar movie made.
We’ll never know how early the Manchurian capability was developed and how much it’s in use today. But sure as hell people are being brainwashed and directly hit by modern undisclosed sorts of mind weapons. Must be horrible to imagine the capacity of it today and in the near future with all the nano-tech, bio-tech, wireless frequency and such at the disposal of certain interests we’ll never know about.
I’d say this film is underrated compared to what passes as sci-fi films today. Although it has flaws I find it to be another of those films with interesting ideas of the future, that may not always succeed in being perfect cinematically, but still have that energy and foresight into the future. All in all, Brainstorm is a good film and worth watching!
What do you think?