Page - 34 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/01

a longing for transcendence and connection. The film has been repeatedly de- scribed as spiritual despite never overtly depicting or addressing religion or God, a non-religious “spiritual impressionism” and “science-fiction with overtones of transcendence”.45 Film critics have observed this spiritual dimension in both the film’s narrative and its formal aesthetic, calling it a “cerebral-spiritual love story”,46 a “colossal cosmic synch-up […] of material on the smartphone of Earth and the mainframe computer of the heavens”,47 and stating, “if you’ve ever sat at your desk wondering whether there’s more to life, or been kept awake by an insidious hum in the darkness, this will speak to your soul”.48 Jeremy Biles observes that the film contains implicit religious motifs and ideas, highlighting the themes of “redemp- tion, salvation, perfection, identity, and trauma as a path of spiritual attainment”.49 Carruth himself describes the subtly religious inspirations for the film’s story: It was the nagging feeling about where personal narratives and personal identi- ty come from. The idea that people would identify themselves as having a par- ticular personal or religious belief. When I was having conversations with people I was wondering if, once these ideas become cemented, whether I was having a conversation with someone who was present and critically thinking or whether I was having a conversation with someone who had compiled a set of talking points over time.50 He mentions that the film addresses the “universal feeling of something unspoken, or a certain religious belief in a God or a cosmic force controlling events”.51 Similarly, in an interview with /Film, when responding as to whether the film had a religious influence, Carruth replies: I mean it’s definitely influenced, because I think we all are. I guess you could tell a version of this story that would be like It’s a Wonderful Life where you’ve got the angels that are looking down and talking about him and then they send one. In that way you’ve got human characters that are affected at a distance from some heav- enly place […] So I guess the answer is that the ambition of the film is to be uni- versal and not to speak about any one religion or even religion itself instead of … I feel like we’ve got tons of religions that we don’t even call religions, you know?52 45 Brody 2013. 46 Chang 2013. 47 Bradshaw 2013. 48 Johnston 2013. 49 Biles 2013, 164. 50 Koehler 2013, 12. 51 Koehler 2013, 13. 52 Fischer 2013. Parabolic Transcendence in Time and Narrative | 33www.jrfm.eu 2020, 6/1, 17–36