INDEX
Jarvis Cocker’s songs within the play and the closing theme
In addition to the use of existing songs, there are also newly written songs that are performed throughout the film, and they, too, are used to interesting effect. Jarvis Cocker, a longtime friend of Anderson’s, appears with Seu Giorgi, another old acquaintance, as a member of a Western band that performs in the sink (the skiffle style of this performance is also interesting).
In the end of the film, Jarvis himself sings the song “You Can’t Wake Up If You Don’t Fall Asleep. The lyrics of this dark and gothic song, reminiscent of Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen, are as follows.
You can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep
You can’t fall in love and land on your feet
You won’t smell the roses if you never plant a seed
And you can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleepYou can’t make an entrance if you keep missing your cue
You won’t pick a winner till you learn how to choose
You never find a treasure unless you dig deep
And you can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleepOh, you’ll never have memories worth keepin’
Oh, you’ll never find the truth you are seekin’
While you are sleepin’But you can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep
“You Can’t Wake Up If You Don’t Fall Asleep”
So go live your dreams and live them real deep
There is some countin’ money and there’s some countin’ sheep
Oh, you can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep
If you don’t fall asleep
The phrase “You can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep” (“You can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep”) appears as a memorable line in the film (*subtitled “Go to sleep if you want to wake up”). (*Subtitle: “Sleep if you want to wake up.”) The characters all chant this phrase during rehearsals for the stage production of “Asteroid City.”
If what we see when we sleep is a “dream,” then this line and this piece of music can only be seen as a kind of light (hope? reality?) through the time and experience of playing with the fiction of a “dream. Reality?) If this is the case, then this line and the song are indeed a message that we can see some kind of light (hope? reality?) only after spending time/experience playing with the fiction of “dreams. In other words, isn’t Anderson saying here that “awakening” to reality, paradoxically, can only be achieved through “fiction”?
A movie like a dreamlike
The theme of this film is “rebirth from grief through fiction and dreams. Or rather, it seems that Anderson has been using this theme for a long time.
The fall is that the play-within-a-play = “Asteroid City” is more “realistic” visuals based on the location, and the meta-narrative that makes up the play is more “theatrical” visuals with written and stage effects. Furthermore, the intricate setting in which we, the audience, are watching a TV program that overlooks all of this. In addition, the actors are nested in a way that they are playing the actors playing the roles. The acrobatic structure of the film is such that the existence of each character paradoxically emerges through these multiple layers of fictional devices.
Anderson’s acrobatic technique, in which the structure is so intricate that we are forced to surrender to the beautiful images (and music) more easily (or vaguely, as the case may be), leads us unwittingly into fiction and dreams, and at the end of the play, as if to make us slowly open our eyes that had been closed up to that moment, makes us face reality once again. The final moments of the film make us confront reality once again, as if to slowly open our previously closed eyes.
The word “dreamy” means not only to dream well, but also to feel refreshed by a good dream. “Asteroid City” is truly a “dreamy” film. At the end of the end roll, I heard Jarvis mutter “Wake Up” in a small voice at the end of the song, and I stretched out wide, leaving the theater with a strangely refreshed feeling.
Information
Asteroid City
Opening Friday, September 1, 2023 at TOHO CINEMAS Chanter, Shibuya White Cine Quint, and other theaters nationwide.
Director/Screenplay: Wes Anderson
Original Story: Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola
Cast: Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody and others
Distributor: Parco Universal Pictures
© 2023 Pop. 87 Productions LLC & Focus Features LLC. All Rights Reserved
https://asteroidcity-movie.com/
