By Simon Thompson
Writer and director Gerrit Van Woudenberg’s Quantum Suicide is a movie that’s so strongly aligned with hard science fiction that it’s made out of granite and could walk into KFC, order a steak, and get one. This is a film that I would go out of my way to label as extremely marmitey, with your personal enjoyment depending on which side of the science fiction aisle your tastes align with.
If you happen to be a twitchy, Ritalin-addicted, JJ Abrams/ Michael Bay fan who wants to see lens flares and big things go boom- then avoid this thing like it’s handing out flyers to a mediocre karaoke bar. However, if you like serious intellectual science fiction in the vein of Arthur C Clarke or Isaac Asimov, as well as movies such as Tarkovsky’s Stalker, Primer, Blade Runner, 2001, Ex Machina, Arrival, and are currently arranging your Leo, Moebius and Enki Bilal collections alongside your TNG and Farscape DVDs as I write, then this is definitely the movie for you.
The plot of Quantum Suicide follows a physicist named Cayman (Andrew Rogerson), who is hellbent on finding the true meaning behind the theory of everything ( the quantum mechanical theory not that god- awful Eddie Redmayne Stephen Hawking movie). Cayman is utterly determined to the extent that he builds a particle accelerator out of scrapped objects in his garage to test his ideas, to the complete detriment of both his physical and mental health and his personal relationships.
Despite the movie being grounded in the hard science fiction tradition of being more concerned with theories and ideas than plot, this is fundamentally a narrative which explores the nature and cost of obsession. Through Gerrit Van Woundberg’s constant use of close-ups and quick-montage style editing, we see the cost that Cayman’s experiments have taken on him in stark full reality.
The decision to set the film in a dull suburban environment is an intelligent choice on Van Woudenberg’s part, in that he is able to juxtapose Cayman’s lofty ambitions with the soul-crushing mundanity of his environment, showing that despite Cayman’s immense intelligence he’s still stuck in a dead-end depressing situation like most people.
I would also like to reserve special praise for sound designer Mark Lazeski’s dissonant, almost Lynchian soundscape, which, as Cayman’s tinnitus begins to worsen, is only made more and more prominent as the movie’s narrative draws to a close.
Even though I wouldn’t describe Quantum Suicide as a particularly dialogue-driven movie, Andrew Rogerson excels in his portrayal of Cayman as a broken, stressed husk of a man as does Kate Totten in her performance as his long-suffering partner Genevieve, portraying her as tired and heartbroken as she watches the man she loves pursue his self-destructive path.
Overall, Quantum Suicide is a well put together and intelligent piece of science fiction, although it does demand a lot from the audience it rewards them in return with stunning direction and resonant universal themes concerning the cost of unfettered and disastrous ambition. If you’re looking for an intellectual science fiction movie, Quantum Suicide is absolutely worth checking out.
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