Optimized for Firefox, 1024x768 or better...
Nowhere Man and LOSTThere's an interesting case of parallel storytelling for LOST fans in the 1990s mystery series Nowhere Man. The entire series reflects LOST in various ways, but I was particularly struck by the resemblance in an episode I viewed recently -- "Through a Lens Darkly."
Nowhere Man -- which would make an excellent Christmas or winter hiatus present for diehard LOST fans who can't wait till February -- is a complicated show about photojournalist Thomas Veil, whose life is taken away from him by a shadowy conspiratorial Organization (with a capital O).
The Organization wants the negative of a photo taken by Tom that shows a military execution in a South American jungle. The program is heavily influenced by The Prisoner (an even better show for LOST fans, but that's a post for another day).
Any given episode is some incredibly elaborate subterfuge to trick or coerce Tom into giving up the negative -- a surrender which, (as in The Prisoner) must be an act of free will.
There's not a whole theory in this, so much as a parallel which I found noteworthy. I was struck by the way that A Lens Darkly" brings to mind elements of LOST. They include:
Thomas Veil is taken to a house that appears to be the house where he grew up. His captors tell him he has a choice about whether to enter, a notion at which he scoffs. But it is repeated -- with the caveat that the wrong choice will no doubt be unpleasant. He decides to enter.
The theme of reflection -- both literal and figurative -- begins immediately as the windows of the door impenetrably reflect the trees outside.
Within the house, Veil opens a door and finds himself in the middle of a flashback.
At first, he thinks the girl is actually addressing his present self, but it quickly becomes clear this is a memory, as he plays with his first childhood love, who offers to play whatever game he wishes with whatever rules he wishes. The boy Tom explains that there are no rules in the game he wants to play.
Tom snaps out of the flashback and walks out of the room. The camera reveals a mirror behind him.
The flashbacks continue -- mixed in some cases with his present reality. At one point he tries to leave the house and finds himself facing armed troops -- a component of a flashback not yet seen -- who drive him back into the house with gunfire.
He continues to see flashbacks of his relationship with his childhood love, Laura, as they progress through their lives into college and young adulthood. He becomes an investigative photographer, working in war zones, but they maintain their love.
Through a relatively pedestrian presentation (especially compared to the flashbacks in LOST), the point is amply made that Laura was the first great love of Tom's life. The ordinariness of the flashback is interrupted as Tom comes out of the college-age memory to find a man watching him -- one of the cigar-smoking operatives of the Organization that has been hunting him.
Listed as "The Man" in the credits, the actor is Sam Anderson -- castaway Bernard on LOST -- in a wonderfully creepy performance. He comments on the pain of the memories (not yet evident). The chandelier on the ceiling clinks, and The Man tells Tom not to worry -- "it's only glass, Tom, just reflections of things you've already seen."
Tom flashes back to a bomb scene he is photographing as a journalist -- he is traumatized by the memory. The Man offers to help, to take the pain away. To "change everything and still leave you with enough of your precious identity intact that you can feel complete."
It becomes clear that Laura is dead. The Man and Tom talk, with the Man offering to help Tom forget his painful memories incurred by Tom's relentless search for the truth (as he saw his journalistic role). The Man offers Tom an escape from the dark side of his consciousness. He quotes Sophocles to describe what he is offering -- "memory without pain."
Tom tries to jump The Man, but The Man disappears. Tom discovers the house is wired with lasers which seem connected to the visions.
Tom traces the wires of the laser projectors to try to find their power source and origin. But at the end of the cord, he finds only another mirror -- and another flashback.
The story in the flashbacks basically revolves around Tom's career choice, which inadvertently albeit avoidably leads to Laura being killed in a terrorist bombing in Belfast. She repeatedly expresses concern about the danger and darkness of his photography career, always working in danger and photographing the darker side of life.
Through chance, Tom's choice to take an assignment leads to Laura being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Had he made the other choice, through chance, Laura would have been saved. The mirrors begin to provide a gateway out of the flashbacks, as well as in.
"It's about recognizing the destructive patterns in one's own behavior," The Man tells Tom, who questions how The Man could possibly know these details of his life. "Well, that's the trick, isn't it?" the future Bernard says, paraphrasing Ogden Nash: "How confusing the beams from memory's lamp, what's the secret of the trick? How did I get old so quick?"
By now having caught on to the fact that the mirrors are triggering flashbacks, Tom avoids looking into the next one he encounters, prompting an appearance from The Man in a surreal empty room during which one of the overarching secrets of the show is revealed (it's a spoiler and tangential to this discussion so we shall pass it over). Tom asks why the Man keeps coming back to this memory.
"How could you possibly know?"
"That's my special gift. Knowing." The Man explains that he used refracted light to trigger off an advanced hypnotic state. With these tools I am able to root out the most painful, deeply guarded secrets."
As Tom continues to insist on his constitutional need to confront truth and resist what is being done to him, he is told that the pain of this memory is what makes him who he is. The mirror is turned to him again and he relives the sequence leading to Laura's death.
His spirit broken, Tom agrees to give up his negatives. But as they drive to collect them, he breaks open his camera and finds the mirror inside the apparatus, prompting one more memory that restores his will to fight.
Afterword:
All this drama is interesting light of Nowhere Man's final revelations (and don't read this if you're planning to watch the show):
Spoiler:
Thomas Veil's memories -- and his very identity -- are actually all falsified.
Which is, of course, one of my favorite LOST theories as well.
Technorati Tags: Lost, Dharma, Dharma Initiative
Posted by J.M. Berger || Permalink
Post a Comment
0 Comments:
|
|
