My history teacher once said, “It is our loves that make life worth
living.” By this measure, I have no ground to complain.
I encountered my first love at the age of 10, on a rainy autumn
afternoon. I was in the 5th grade, just having been
allowed to return home every day right after the last class. The
day-boarders of my class (i. e. those who remained in school for the
afternoon) were brought to cinema once a month and we were invited to
join them. That afternoon I was not sure if I wanted to go because
the film's title reminded me of the action genre I did not like.
Reluctantly, I went – and I was not the same person as I left the
cinema. I fell in love with Back to the Future for the rest of
my life.
The Power of Love
The Power of Love
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| Hill Valley, 1955, as seen from the future ("Back to the Future", © Universal Pictures) |
For a long time, I thought it was my interest in history which
resonated so strongly with this time-travel movie. In fact, however,
the film's protagonist does not travel back in time on a historical
scale. He travels back in time on a personal scale, into a period
which still lives on vividly in the memories of his parents. Instead
of depicting a historical epoch, the film shows how a family's life
was shaped by past events that happened to its members and how
another turn of events could have led to a different form of life for
the family and its members. It is this personal theme that has
enchanted millions watching Back to the Future in
the past three decades.
