Once upon a seemingly boring Friday, after a painfully
long week, I decided to watch a movie untitled “Her” starring Joaquin Phoenix.
And tell you what, there is indeed a reason why she is called Her and
not you … It because she is the embodiment of an absence … And through absence, she is forcefully and
achingly present in the mind and heart of the protagonist “Theodore”.
He fell in love with a voice on the other end of the
line. This might sound a cliché, but dear God it is not ! It is far from being
a lousy romance speaking of love-distance relationship. It is an ethereal love
from the futur .. A mighty bond that ties two hearts not through matter or
senses but through the simple act of conversation, through the power of words
for these are able to beget affection.
It is not sophistry; it is the magic of a spiritual
consensus through interaction. We live in an age fraught with instances of
failing communication, let us imagine how this human misfortune develops towards
the future decades … It is typical to
think that the machine replaces and even kills the feelings, but Theodore, a
man from the future, manifests himself as a human being par excellence.
Throughout the whole movie, he struggles to quench an agonizing need; that of
having the pleasure of a loving and understanding companion. He finds what he
longs for in an operating system with a female voice. This might seem dull and
even creepy, but trust you me, it is surprisingly beautiful.
This movie, although set sometime in the next few
decades, teaches the viewer a notion as old as Ibn Khaldoun. “Man is civil by Nature” and forever shall He
remain. The human being needs to talk, to express, to feel understood, to feel
loved and needed and to feel that there is someone out there who relates to
what he feels …
To fully grasp the essence of another human being, it
is not enough to chat endlessly and rejoice in the amount of common points you
have. It is much more … It is feeling at ease with the possible pauses,
silences, sudden breeches and the inability to express one’s self at times ! To
be comfortable and even savour the occasional mute episodes is an essential part
of a good and fulfilling conversation. In those brief gaps, we feel the
presence of the other, we become aware of his scent, his pulse and his
heartbeat and thus we grow fonder. In the
absence of words, the essence rises to the surface …
“These people so scared of silence … These sound-
This is why we ought to fall in love, not only with our eyes closed, but
with all our senses put aside, for our senses do deceive us like Aristotle
maintained. We should let our hearts take over our course of being in a
relationship. This is what Theodore did … He stumbled upon Happiness in the
voice of Samantha, an entirely alien essence to him, but gets him nonetheless.
She fathoms his need to sleep on the whisper of a dear person, to wake up with
the promise of beautiful morning words, to chat through aimless walks on the
beach, to convey his worries without words … To simply be silent together …
Indeed, humans are incredibly fragile, they tend to shatter with the dread
of solitude. However, simple words console them and the mere presence of
another person makes them whole …
