Device Notes

The opening shot of Faat Kin é sh ows us a single-file line of women in Senegalese dress walking through the city of Dakar, carrying plastic containers of different colors on their heads.  Then, the camera pulls away from them until we can see can see a whole city block.  We can see not only the women but also cars and other pedestrians, all moving in different directions.  Some of the other people walking about are dressed like the women are, and some are dressed in a more western style.   The women move as a unit, a small but distinct group of connected people within the larger city.     It sets the stage for what the film is about: the small social networks of individuals that transact and overlap with others, the existence of communities-in-miniature within modern cities.  Kiné N’diaye Diop manages a gas station in Dakar, and every day, several people come before her desk.  Some of them she knows, some of them she doesn't....

There is window-dressing here of a mutually dependent relationship between love and science, where the optimistic hope found in love pushes the characters toward discovery. Early on in the film, Anne Hathaway's character, Dr. Brand, suggests that they travel to a planet where the man she loved once traveled.  The other characters decide against this, but she's ultimately vindicated.  On the other hand, Matt Damon's character, Dr. Mann, falsifies scientific data out of desperation and pessimism to lure the other characters in before almost getting them all killed.  But discovery of what?  Humanity supposedly outgrows its cradle by changing where people live, but not how.  They problem is solved when they can go back to exactly what they were doing before.  They build a suburb on the inside of an O'Neill cylinder when they can't build them on Earth anymore.  How little this film actually digs into the relationship between love and discovery is seen in...