The sublime aspect of mastery is its capacity to deliver a masterpiece while hiding its exhausting and relentless process.

A Master lets us be in awe of something without thinking about the sweat, failures, and tears that created it. While working, they’re indifferent to time as their obsession over details occupies all their minds.

In our era of instant coffee and fake likes, we are fortunate to live with one.

Christopher Nolan.

On Friday, we will experience one more of his works (Oppenheimer), his seventeenth as director. Centuries from now, we will probably remember it like the day Leonardo delivered one of his less than twenty paintings.

In the end, mastery never cares about quantity.

So, to celebrate it, here is the only thing an admirer can do, thank him by remembering one of his previous works.

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Interstellar, 2014.

Dirt could easily be the least perceptive yet lethal danger to our planet. Slowly and gradually, it would block sunlight while contaminating our bodies.

The first effect would eventually stop life, and the latter would kill it.

Under this alarming situation, people live in this future world. But the problem, unexpectedly, has not become their difficulty breathing but their lack of sight. The world has lost its vision.

“We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars, now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.” – Copper.

Our loss of vision is affected by our increased illusion of certainty. Science is about what we still don’t know, and somehow, as we grow up, we start losing our scientist gene and the world starts getting boring for us.

So, who can save us?

Murph, a beautiful and curious girl, represents our hidden kid, the aspect that makes our life enjoyable.

“Whatever can happen, will happen”, Cooper explains her name and redefines a Law. In the process, it opens the infinite possibilities that only a kid’s mind can create.

There are no absolutes, only options.

Both father and daughter, “cannot just let go” of the drone. At that moment they are driven by a message that, although they cannot fully understand, they can feel. The story of our lives, we might hide it to the point of pretending they don’t exist, but feelings have always been our motors.

“Love is the only thing we’re capable to perceive that transcends dimensions of space and time.”- Professor Brand.

The machines at Cooper’s farm suffer some sort of interference in their compass and lost their guide. They all immediately come back to the house. In this representation, a subtle and elegant detail reminds us of what we need to do when facing uncertainty, there is no place like home.  

In the meantime, Murph, our kid, is still looking for her ghost. “It feels like a person trying to say something.”  Feelings and sayings, things that seldomly coordinate.

The ghost will not talk because words are not appropriate, nevertheless, it will send a message during the harshest conditions using the ever-present force of our world, gravity.

Sometimes, the silent forms are the ones carrying the loudest messages.

“It’s not Morse Code, it’s Binary Coordinates” – Cooper.

The binary system is the simplest written form of communication. In its simplicity, finds its power.

The message reads STAY, and at this moment, one of the most beautiful paradoxes. If Copper listens to it, the message would have never been delivered. Time and space start bending in front of our eyes, we just can’t still perceive it.

It is Murph’s stubbornness as they follow the coordinates, that makes Copper try to cut the fence. The kid is not afraid, curiosity is bravery. Consequently, they get caught by…

“Absolute honesty isn’t always the most diplomatic nor the safest form of communication with emotional beings.” – TARS

Cooper wakes up at a robot that would ultimately become his best friend. He asks about her daughter and Dr. Brand appears while he gets yelled at by artificial intelligence. In a short but powerful scene, the three characters that will end up sacrificing their lives for humanity show three different emotions.

We all have our reasons created by our contexts; saving our world relies on understanding it.

“Lazarus came back from death” – Dr. Brand (Father)

The mission is clear, twelve (apostles) scientists started journeys outside of our galaxy looking for any signs of life. There are three that have sent back promising messages. Our species must be preserved by populating one of them or sending our current civilization.

Retrospectively, what Copper told Murph when finding the drone – “these things learn how to adapt, like all of us.” –  becomes of transcendental significance.

Cooper needs to leave, feels it is his calling. When he finally decides to talk to Murph, convinced that parents are only here to be memories for our kids, a powerful scene unfolds. A kid possesses invaluable curiosity and bravery but lacks an understanding of the harshest price of life.

“In order to go somewhere, you need to leave something behind.” – TARS

At her first encounter with suffering, Murph cries and loses her capacity for listening. She understands the situation like no one else but becomes irrelevant when facing separation from her father. She experiences the unfortunate part of life that is needed to make us stronger.

Next, two watches are presented as the only link between father and daughter. Later and beautifully, the message that will dissolve space and time, will be delivered through the object that keeps it.

(Masters choose how to present details so carefully that they exhaust ideas. We just never get to see the unused.)

On their long journey, the four crew members go through an introspective process that only loneliness can create. Sounds of rain and night listened to through headphones turn into treasures, and “settling for a long nap” becomes the most important activity.

When they enter the wormhole, a space component seen only in mathematics, they feel the first distortions of traveling to a different galaxy. Joysticks do not work anymore, they are forced to lose control, one of the most difficult things to accept.

Determining which planet to go to first is supposed to be only a matter of logic and careful calculations, but as life teaches us, love can never be removed from our most transcendental decisions. Dr. Brand is in love with someone she has not seen in years which makes her biased, but more importantly, correct.

Cooper listens with his mind and not his heart, they end up paying the consequences.

They hit a wave at their first stop which they confused with a mountain. We tend to make the same mistake, thinking of things as steady when they are always changing. In their mistake, they waste seven years of Earth time for every hour spent on that planet.

Relativity bends space teaching us that the hardest learnings usually take the longest time.

When Copper comes back to the ship, after more than twenty years, he immediately checks on his messages. The sequence, communicated by his son, goes like this: girlfriend – grandson – grandfather dead. Eternal moments of life.

Just before turning off the screen, her daughter, Murph, shows up after having never done it before.

“Someone told me that we would be the same age, so right now would be a very good time for you to come back.” – Murph

The more we try to understand time, the more we suffer from it. It is not when but the “why” of the things that give us the right foundation, as Grandpa, in his last conversation with Cooper, eloquently said.

Back on Earth, Murph finds out that Dr. Brand (Father) knew a long time ago that the equation that could save Earth’s population cannot be solved, it needs more data that could only be obtained by looking inside a black hole.

In its climax, the movie lays out the game of life. No matter how much we try, we will never have all the information. In its uncertainty, our existence finds its beauty.

On their last planet, the remaining crew finds Dr. Mann, the admirable leader that has motivated people to believe that Lazarus’ legend could be real. But leadership comes in different forms and as it pushes the limits of societies, it always walks a thin line between hero and villain.

“We care deeply about the ones we love but empathy barely extends that line”- Dr. Mann

In the eyes of Cooper, he gets betrayed by Dr. Mann who always knew the truth and is willing to die for it. In the minds of the spectator, judging any decision feels vain and irresponsible.

This is the effect of a masterpiece; the only permissible thing is to admire it.

Cooper, Dr. Brand, TARS, and CASE fight relentlessly. As a team, they show that our survival instinct is our greatest source of inspiration.  They manage to attach the ship one more time by spinning at the ship’s speed limit. We are always moving relative to something else, even if we can’t feel it.

Finally, a plan gets worked out between Cooper, TARS, and CASE. They will detach themselves on different ships into the black hole, hoping to get the information needed. The plan is not communicated to Dr. Brand by Cooper. In its detachment, the strongest proof of love.

As Cooper enters the black hole, a delicate detail cannot be ignored. As he tries to relay information, he spins out of control. The moment he stops, different configurations of space and time are presented to him. Stillness is the ultimate and most effective of our dimensions.

He quiets down and understands.

“They did not bring us here, we brought ourselves.” – Cooper.

The message, movie, and masterpiece get delivered at that moment.

A cyclical expression that could have not happened without the elegant sequence of all previous actions. Relativity is portrayed not only as a component of space but life.

At last, Cooper and Murph find the answer by looking at their only connection, their watch that held time forever and that communicates through the power of love.  

In a gorgeous dance between fiction and reality, Interstellar reminds us to never lose hope as the forces we cannot yet understand but always feel will always be here, for us.

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Enjoy “Oppenheimer”. Feel the work of a Master.