Here is literally here and now

In the meaning of the term Here, there is not just the idea of a place. This certainly seems to be the case in Robert Zemeckis's film, which is confined to a single continuous shot. After all, the reference to the physical space of a perimeter is clearly defined from the very first moment the rectangle of the cinema screen frames a piece of land that, over the years, has become a pathway, a street, and, finally, the house inhabited by various generations. Here, therefore, is undoubtedly the concept of place, of belonging, where roots lie not only for the protagonists living within the four walls—both of the structure and of the cinematic space—but also for the entire story written by Eric Roth together with the director. The narrative progresses through another element closely tied to the notion of "time." Here is the moment we are watching; here is the sequence the audience sees unfolding before their eyes, consuming the continuous presence of the actors on stage. None of them can imagine what might come next; some certainly wonder (and discover) what happened before. But Here does not limit itself to narrating the lives of the protagonists. At its core, it centers on the fate of the Young family (ironically, their name translates to "young," though they are the only ones we will see grow older), going back to the origin—indeed—of space and time, from when dinosaurs roamed freely on the earth to the advent of the first men and women who shaped the world as we know it, reaching even the Covid pandemic.

If the place remains fixed—a geometric collage that Zemeckis cuts and frames with windows that open and close over the image, overlapping and expanding them like tunnels through which to pass in the fabric of space-time—it is the years, decades, and centuries that pass in the film, while we, the viewers, remain motionless in our seats observing them. Here. The work of a director who has cinematically narrated some of the most significant stories in American and global cultural history (from the fusion of reality and animation in Who Framed Roger Rabbit to the novelized 20th century of Forrest Gump, and the pervasive introduction of technology in The Polar Express and Beowulf) expands with a work that is more analytical than entertaining. More a study of the medium of cinema/time machine than cinema for the audience itself. A contradiction, almost, given that Here speaks directly about us, humanity, and people, establishing a dialogue that bridges those who have lived (and are living) within the various sequences and those watching them from another geometric frame—the screen—whether in a neighborhood theater, a multiplex, or on their own computer.

As a testimony to a memory that is fragile (to the point where a character will lose it) and that Robert Zemeckis aims to preserve in his frames to keep it anchored and still—with the character played by Tom Hanks, de-aged alongside his colleague Robin Wright, repeatedly presenting images through other windows, his paintings—Here builds the connections that cinema can create and with cinema. In real life and in the threads that bind us to other people. It is no coincidence that a similar experiment can be likened, in terms of linkages, to the broader depiction of life and the universe described and assembled in Lana and Lilly Wachowski’s Cloud Atlas, which even features one of the same actors: Hanks, loyal to Zemeckis’s filmography. Temporal leaps, communications transcending cosmic orders, ellipses that always lead back to the same point: human beings need a place to belong, to meet, to engage with others, with those who came before and those who will come after. They need a refuge. A home that can be as present in itself as cinema knows how to be.