Berlinale 2024: Jérémy Clapin’s Sci-Fi Grief Tale ‘Meanwhile on Earth’
by Alex Billington
February 23, 2024
One of my favorite films from 2019 is an animated French feature called I Lost My Body, about hand that runs off from a lab and a guy who encounters it. I was delighted to discover that the filmmaker behind I Lost My Body, named Jérémy Clapin, already has a new science fiction film finished and ready. His latest film is titled Meanwhile on Earth, also known as Pendant ce temps sur Terre in French, and it premiered at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival in the Panorama section. I’m glad I caught up with it, even though I didn’t even know it was playing at Berlinale until halfway through when other colleagues started talking about it. Meanwhile on Earth is a mesmerizing little sci-fi film about a woman connecting with extraterrestrial life. Not a knockout, nothing to phone home about, but vibrant filmmaking that kept me intrigued. It may not end up as impactful as I Lost My Body, but Jérémy Clapin will keep getting better the more films he makes.
Meanwhile on Earth, both written and directed by Jérémy Clapin, is about a young French woman who is stuck spiraling in her grief over the disappearance of her brother – an astronaut who mysteriously vanished in space. Megan Northam stars as Elsa, who one day encounters a strange force that allows her to speak to her missing brother – just for a few minutes. A group of mysterious extraterrestrial beings are holding him and to bring him back safely they ask her to help them on their “path” to come to Earth. I won’t say anything more, the rest is a meant to be a mystery. The film takes the Babel Fish from Hitchhiker’s Guide and mashes it up with Invasion of the Body Snatchers for its own clever sci-fi concept. However, it doesn’t go as far as it could with this concept, though it is quite mesmerizing to watch anyway. Of course the pervading question is whether or not all this is just in her head – is she actually interacting with these space beings? Or is this just her grief talking to her? How far will she go down the path they want her taking? What will she do next?
Part of what makes this film work well is that Clapin neatly trims the fat, leaving out any excess in terms of bloated storytelling, unnecessary details in the script, complex elements of the sci-fi concept, and so on. One reason is to work with a limited budget, but the other reason is because it helps streamline the storytelling. This means the film brings up tons of questions that it has no interest in answering, but for me (as a lover of sci-fi) that didn’t take away from my engagement in the narrative. It had me hooked with sleek, minimalistic cinematography and an entrancing main character. The score by Dan Levy (same composer from I Lost My Body) is tremendous, and elevates the emotions in just the right way, making the film more grand than it seems at first glance. Megan Northam is also a real discovery, taking on this emotional role and delivering a memorable lead performance. The ending is a let down, not enough to derail it, at least for me. Even though it ends up right where it should anyway, as a sci-fi geek, I can’t help wanting more out of the concept in this.
Alex’s Berlinale 2024 Rating: 7 out of 10
Follow Alex on Twitter – @firstshowing / Or Letterboxd – @firstshowing
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