【电影简介】

《这个男人来自地球》（The Man from Earth）是一部2007年出品的独立电影。由Richard Schenkman执导，Jerome Bixby编剧。本片在IMDB上获得了8.1的高分（截至2009年11月7日）。但收看后观众评价褒贬不一，有人大失所望——认为其全片场景不多，大量对白；其他人大呼过瘾——认为其跳出近几年科幻电影“激光加金属”的圈子，更加关注精神上，而非视觉上的科幻。
一个普通男人的秘密在他的辞职事件中开始显示出端倪。历史教授约翰奥德曼说自己身上有一个让大家都匪夷所思的秘密，而为了保守这个秘密他不能在一个地方超过十年。他的朋友们试图去发掘他的故事中的秘密，这一举动让约翰非常生气，而他的朋友却发现约翰的故事是无法被否定也无法查证的，究竟约翰身上有着怎样的秘密？一幕幕碎片联系起来，带给我们一个意料之外的故事高潮。

【音频文本】

"Man from Earth" is an outstanding film. The title of the film, and talk of nanoseconds, Martian colonies, and perfect regeneration, might lead many to expect a thrilling science fiction movie, but those people will soon find themselves disappointed.

The story is about a few college professors sitting in a half empty room shooting the breeze, and the only part of the film that could be considered even remotely exciting involves a gun that is never fired.

To his friends, the protagonist John Oldman is just a retiring scholar, but at an impromptu farewell party he reveals that he is an immortal who has been walking the earth for 14000 years.

His friends and fellow faculty members are taken aback at the revelation, and pepper John with questions related to their own fields of expertise. John is able to answer all of the questions correctly, though he shatters the image of an all-knowing immortal by underscoring the difficulty in keeping up-to-date with the progress of all subjects.

So here we are in a world overwhelmed by various kinds of rapidly expanding information, choosing your information intake carefully is necessary for anyone who wishes to stay sane.

The latter half of the movie witnesses a sudden shift in topic and becomes dominated by a discussion on religion. Again, John shocks his friends by claiming to be Jesus Christ himself.

This striking idea, mingled with little known facts and ideas about early Christianity, make up the bulk of the latter half, until the discussion comes to a sudden stop and everyone leaves after John apologies for having played such a bad joke on them.

The attempt to find common ground between two religions is a nice one, but since the latter half is predominantly a discussion, if not argument, on religious matters, I get an impression that either the screenwriter or the director has run out of whimsical ideas, which have been the highlight of the first part.

Throughout the film there isn't much action, but merely an on-going conversation. Yet the director is able to capture the viewers’ attention, at least in the first half. First of all, every curious mind, thirsty for knowledge, must have considered immorality as the route to master all the knowledge and wisdom of mankind. So the topic stirs up enough of the viewers' imagination that could keep them on their seats. Plus, the viewers are supplied with an abundance of food-for-thought in the form of interesting facts, ideas and even questions in the fields such as history, biology and anthropology, as John deals with his friends' challenge.

Despite the movie's somewhat misfit and monotonous second half and the abrupt ending, the director has managed to capture the viewers' attention with a simple setting, fluent running conversation and thought provoking questions. On a scale from one to ten, this film deserves an eight.

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