I remember discovering this movie about 7 or so years ago by reading about Star Trek authors Harlan Ellison and Jerome Bixby. I clicked on them to see what else they'd made. The Man from Earth? Boring name.
I rented this on a whim expecting nothing, and was frankly blown away. This movie is extremely minimal, low budget, amateur, and has bad film quality. But what it involves, what is takes you on, now that is where it shines.
The film evolves through only dialogue. A group of friends are seeing their friend off as he leaves town, going to his house and pestering him with questions about why he is going. He eventually gives and his story starts.
I explained to my gf who I was watching it with, mild spoiler, the movie is basically: what would it take for someone to convince you they are immortal? This is the plot. The friend has been alive thousands of years, and begins to convince the others of this.
What's amazing is first and foremost the writing. They address everything you could think of, and many things you couldn't. It's written with knowledge of history, religion, mankind, morality, pain, love, existence and existentialism. It goes into what someone would learn, how memory works, what we hold as valuable. And so much more.
The Man from Earth is a spectacle not like many others, a film that poses questions and makes bold statements using the medium of minimalism to do so. I wish more like this existed. 5 stars.
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