Rhoda's Cosmonaut Story In "Another Earth"

Another Earth was merely an interesting film up until the moment in which Rhoda (Brit Marling) tells John (William Mapother) the story of the Russian cosmonaut. Rhoda—for those unfamiliar with the film—put John into a coma and killed his wife and son in a drunk driving accident when she was 17. A minor when the accident occurred, her name was withheld from court proceedings and John never found out who destroyed his family. Released from prison four years later, Rhoda seeks out John to apologize, but finds herself unable to tell him who she is while standing awkwardly on his front step—instead telling him that she is from a cleaning service offering him a trial run. Entering into a rich and symbolic relationship, Rhoda begins cleaning John’s house. Romance, as you might have guessed, soon follows, along with the inevitable complication.

Rhoda tells John this story just before they fall for each other. Marling and the director Mike Cahill clearly went to great pains to draw a subtle but vivid contrast between this moment and the rest of the film that comes beforehand. Suddenly, Marling's character is animated, a somber veil lifted from her face—her eyes clear, her voice musical. In contrast to the somber grays and blues of the film's prior cinematography, the warm colors in this scene emphasize the melting of Marling’s character and the dissolving, if you’ll forgive the pun, of the bitter chill she had exuded up to this point.

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In fact, this scene is the most words that we hear from Rhoda the entire film. Largely, we view her while in silent contemplation. To witness her break the seal of her thoughts—not only so enthusiastically, but so brilliantly—is a cinematic revelation. Cahill heightens the emotional rhythm of the moment through his use of neat camerawork and editing. For instance, rather than simply flick back and forth between the two actors, Cahill chooses to focus on details, especially Rhoda tapping the knife and John massaging his temples. This care is particularly evident during the moment when both characters have closed their eyes and “entered their imagination,” as Rhoda would have put it, and Cahill paces the moment beautifully, zooming into Marling’s face as she opens her eyes.

The pleasure of the scene is the revelation of the story itself—how the Russian cosmonaut takes this tapping noise, which has been driving him crazy for days, and fits music to the beat and “spent the remainder of his time sailing through space in total bliss.” Perhaps the conclusion is trite—or even historically inaccurate, I’m not familiar with Russian space history—but the implications of that revelation are devastating when seen in light of John and Rhoda’s relationship. “The only way to save his sanity,” Rhoda tells John, “is to fall in love with this sound.”

While I fall prey to the beauty of that sentiment every time I watch this scene, I cannot help but be reminded of a line from another film that I recently saw: “If you can’t fix it, you’ve got to stand it.” The romance between Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain is, given the societal acceptance of homosexuality, impossible. The pitfalls of their 20-year relationships steadily resound from scene to scene in the film, much like the maddening tapping for the Russian cosmonaut. So why should we be any happier about this scene in Another Earth? I grant, obviously, that we are dealing with two different plots, but I think that the “impossibility” of the relationship between Jack and Ennis is certainly similar to the “impossibility” of that between John and Rhoda. As dark of a reading as it may be, I think it’s worth noting that no matter how pretty the overlaid music may be, the underlying beat will never dissipate. You will always hear it pushing and pulling you through the music.