While a skeptical scientist, Ellie Arroway studies extraterrestrial life in Puerto Rico, her sponsor suddenly stops providing her with further assistance. Arroway moves her project to New Mexico with the help of new funds and after years of research, finds conclusive radio proof of alien existence. The aliens then contact her from Vega with plans of building a mysterious machine, which Arroway believes will help her travel to them. The film revolves around Arroway’s attempts to emerge as the best candidate for the project after convincing a commission constituting politicians, military officials, scientists and religious heads.
Through Contact, you will witness the cultural conflicts between science and religion. While science continues to justify the existence of extraterrestrial life, religion tries to assert it is god and nothing else. Every time Arroway finds the skeptics on her side, the believers seem to oppose her decision and whenever she manages to convince the believers, the skeptics seem doubtful about her knowledge. By the end of the film, the scientist finds herself in a position that she had earlier viewed with contempt and skepticism – that of believing something with absolute certainty, though being unable to prove it in the face of not only widespread skepticism and incredulity, but also apparent evidence to the contrary.
Contact manages to portray that both religion and science can co-exist without necessarily being part of opposing camps and it brings out this message with great élan.
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Contact (1997) While a skeptical scientist, Ellie Arroway studies extraterrestrial life in Puerto Rico, her sponsor suddenly stops providing her with further assistance. |
