I just want to know that it's really happening.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind — 4/5 (rewatch)

I have a lot to say about this movie.

This movie is a horror film.
I think something lost in our view of Spielberg is that those early movies of his really leaned heavily into horror. It's easy to think of that with 'Jaws', because it's commonly put in that category, but also — 'Jaws' never really feels like a horror movie as we've grown to know the genre. It feels like a character set piece with some jump scares and gore. It's scary if you think about it rather than being scary in the moment. And 'scary if you think about it' is something that runs through 'Duel,' 'Close Encounters,' and even 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' which I will call the last movie of the first act of his career. We commonly associate Spielberg with a sense of childlike wonder, more akin to 'E.T.,' or the any number of movies he produced in the '80s. We think of him more as the parody of him, like how we associate De Niro with the caricature of his 'Taxi Driver' role. And there is wonder present in these early movies as well, but also equally present is the other side of wonder — fear. 'What's behind that door?' is both an exciting, and dangerous question to ask. Wonder and fear play off of each other, a thin line separating them. The other side of that door might be your parent there to greet you, or an emptiness where a parent used to be. A child asks 'what if aliens exist,' and the adult version says 'it would freak us the fuck out.' There are scary ideas in this movie. But we don't necessarily see it because Spielberg, I think, doesn't have the language for horror. Had he grown up on 'Halloween', he may have made the musical cues more frightening (the dun dun DUN of Jaws is meant to be scary, but you also can't really take it seriously). Had he the camera knowledge of, say, the version of him that made 'War of the Worlds,' he might have been more hectic with his camera. But I'm glad he has neither at this stage in his career, more molded off John Ford, because what he has instead is unmatched and undefinable. When Billy goes running off into the night... it's odd, but it's not presented as scary. But it is scary... if you put yourself into his mother's shoes. This movie is about people who have an incredibly frightening experience, and people who don't believe them, and wouldn't that freak you the fuck out if that happened to you or happened to someone near you? To either have that happen and not be believed, or to see someone you know change and not be able to follow them through that door? These early Spielberg movies were grasping at this notion of 'wow, what a fun idea' mixed equally with 'opening this ancient relic will melt your face off btw.' Step through this door and you will be changed, but you really need to ask yourself — do you want that? But instead of presenting it as horror, it's presented as natural moments within a suburban life. The terror of everyday life. 

This movie is about coming to terms with something you don't understand.
At the ending of this movie, humans repeat a five-note phrase over and over again in an attempt to be understood, while a giant alien machine responds with increasing complexity. It is like a child saying 'Da-da!' over and over again, pleading to communicate, and a parent responding in full whole sentences that the baby cannot even begin to grasp. And so, to the repeated parent metaphors I'm putting in here — I hated 'The Fabelman's' when I watched it, but I think it's worth a rewatch with this movie in mind; at the very least, having watched that movie helps me enjoy this one more. This is very much Spielberg trying to figure out why his mom left. When I first (and last) watched this movie 20-some years ago, I could not grasp how someone with a family could just so easily leave their wife and children. And now, older, I am aware that this happens all the time, every day, all around us. And I think what I also understand after having a few mind-altering experiences of my own is that the curse of knowledge isn't just that you are changed, but that others are not changed. You enter these experiences, through these doorways of perception, and you will know more than you did before and you will be changed forevermore and no one anymore will understand what the fuck you are saying. Which is, again, scary. But I think through this movie he's starting to understand how someone could just leave. Because they have no choice! They are different now. Call it a mid-life crisis. Call it an alien abduction. They are no longer the person you knew, and they must go now be that new thing. 

All-in-all, I'm glad I gave it another shot after all these years as I walk away thinking I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite like it. This movie means something. It's important.