There are actresses and actors who inevitably make any story shine. Which automatically increase the viewing value of a film. Which, through their mere presence, make it at least a better, and often even a good, film. You just love to watch them so incredibly. Kristen Stewart is such an actress. Adam Driver too. And in Benjamin Cleary’s science fiction drama “Schwanengesang” (on the Apple TV + streaming service) it’s Mahershala Ali.
The American actor has already won two Academy Awards for “Moonlight” and “Green Book”, each for best supporting actor. He now plays the main role in “Schwanengesang”. He plays Cameron, a family man forced to find answers to a few intricately complicated personal and moral questions. How far are you willing to go to spare loved ones from grief over your own death?
Cell phones will no longer be needed for communication in the near future, contact lenses will do
“Schwanengesang” is set in the near future. People still wear wool hats, gather around kitchen tables, and get to know each other while flirting on commuter trains – just like Cameron and Poppy. So far, so cozy and familiar. If it weren’t for a few ingenious gadgets that hinted at the progressive technologies of this sci-fi world: super-quiet, driverless electric cars, for example, sensitive service robots or communication tools that no longer require any devices to be operated, just special contact lenses needs. Everything is wonderfully smooth in this world – and not infrequently illuminated, as in James Turrell’s room and light installations.
Death, however, is still inevitable. This poses a huge problem for the terminally ill Cameron, who works as a commercial artist and has arrived in comfortable suburban life with Poppy, now his wife, and a young son. How is he supposed to leave his wife, who is recovering from depression and is pregnant for the second time, alone?
Not having much time, he travels to a facility deep in the coniferous forests of the Pacific Northwest. This is where Dr. Scott (Glenn Close as a wonderfully serene mastermind) specializes in downloading entire human lives including memories and unconscious processes and synchronizing them with artificially created clones. And so from then on Mahershala Ali played two roles: that of the increasingly desperate original and that of its molecularly completely renewed duplicate. This second Cameron from the lab is supposed to take his place without anyone knowing about the swap.
Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris in “Swan Song”.
(Photo: Apple TV +)
A premise that conjures up complex questions like in Spike Jonze’s “Her”. Director and screenwriter Benjamin Cleary turns it into a drama that is elegant and thoughtful and quietly grueling. You never notice for a moment that “Schwanengesang” is his feature film debut after several short films (Oscar for “Stutterer” 2016). The film is impressively illustrated. In the middle of the damp, cold forest landscape, the light is so dim and softly dimmed that you think you are at the end of the world. And the narrative is also sovereign, a balance between love story and high-concept melodrama. Cleary keeps the story a step ahead of sentimentality in a somnambulistic atmosphere.
Mahershala Ali does the rest with his portrayal. He plays two very lonely heroes: Cameron, who is not allowed to talk to anyone about the fateful experiment, and his doppelganger, a fake body that is endowed with real feelings. Two versions of one and the same man – only that one will die and wrestle with the question of whether he will give the other his life. In the hands of another actor, it could have gotten maudlin quickly. But Ali gives many shades to his character’s dilemma. The suffering that tears him apart, the outbursts of anger, the cool negotiating with himself, the ardent love for his family, the battered ego – you can see all of this in his face. And you can see the big questions. What is left when you die? How real can a copy be? How well does technology fill emotional gaps? Do you even want that?
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Swan Song, USA 2021 – Directed and written by Benjamin Cleary. Starring: Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, Glenn Close. Apple TV +, 114 minutes. Streaming start: December 17th