Scarlet Medusa: Short Film Review
The topic of immortality is often just speculation and existential hypotheses. It wasn’t until 1988 that young German marine-biologist, Christian Sommer, unwittingly found a species of jellyfish that indeed are immortal. In Scarlet Medusa, director Spencer MacDonald goes to a coastal tourist town in Japan to study an aging scientist who works to unlock the biological secret of immortality held in the life cycle of the very same jellyfish Christian Sommer found. MacDonald says his short film was inspired by The New York Times article he read that discussed Sommer and the scientist in this film, Professor Shin Kubota of Kyoto University. Where the original article focused more on the scientific aspects of the jellyfish, MacDonald’s film is a beautiful look into the human life cycle and what it would mean to be immortal.
MacDonald begins the film with a priest from a local temple who talks about her pregnancy. She says she was pregnant at the same time her husband was dying from cancer. She ties these two simultaneously happening by saying she was losing one life while giving a new life to the world. During the narration from the woman, the film uses beautiful b-roll shots (shot by MacDonald himself and aerial shots from Drew Kass) of swirling water and intertwined snakes in the sea. MacDonald uses these shots of nature’s cyclical nature to match what the priest is saying, reinforcing the cycle of life.
When focusing on Professor Kubota’s studies on the immortal jellyfish (actual name Turritopsis dohrnii), Kubota explains how the life cycle of the jellyfish is similar to a caterpillar. When both animals get old and begin shriveling up, they both begin to prepare for its next life cycle, returning to their unevolved form. Kubota calls this unevolved form the ‘polyp’ state and the evolved form the ‘medusa’ state. This cycle goes on and on, and while this explanation goes on, MacDonald shows microscopic visuals of how this cycle looks for the jellyfish.
What MacDonald does so well in this film is how he utilizes the short film format. With the set up in the beginning of the priest discussing life cycles, then Kubota discussing the jellyfish, the rest of the film opens up. MacDonald allows Professor Kubota to go off and discuss the possibilities and opportunities humans would have if we could replicate the rejuvenation that the jellyfish is capable of. MacDonald uses visual effects to transpose Kubota from viewing fish in an aquarium to going through space, while he discusses humans finding other species and organisms on other planets. Immortality can be a daunting topic once you begin to focus on what you want from this world and your life if you were immortal. It is the way MacDonald is able to edit this film that transforms it from a biology lesson to a question of philosophy. Professor Kubota even asks, “How should you live?”, while contemplating through b-roll shots of people going about their lives in the busy streets of Kyoto.
MacDonald uses this jellyfish to ask us, the viewers, what we would be capable of if immortal; juxtaposing immortality with the beauty of our finite lives. The priest even laughs and says that being immortal might be tiresome. MacDonald using Professor Kubota’s interest in immortality and juxtaposing it with the priest from the temple’s honest look at the human life cycle is perfect. While exploring the possibilities of immortality with Professor Kubota, the priest says we should all, just once a day, take a moment to breathe and be in the present. Scarlet Medusa is educational and philosophical, leaving the viewer with the question, how should you live?
