2 posts tagged “scifi”
This is the most lo-fi sci-fi film I've seen in quite awhile. Cuaron makes no visual flights of fancy to wow the audience. He captures you with the possibility of this time. We aren't so far off from this now he seems to say. Don't sleep or this is your tomorrow. He doesn't leave us caught out there in this dismal time without a life preserver, however. At all times, we are shown characters who cling tightly to their humanity despite how close the world teeters on oblivion.
And, make no mistake, this is our world. Where I noted in my review of V for Vendetta last year,
here, Cuaron makes no such misstep. Having already diverted significantly from the source material, he creates a near-apocalyptic Britain that is as diverse racially as it is today. Perhaps even more so. The anti-immigrant fervor of this UK obviously has racial overtones but isn't as simplistic as Vendetta's white-washing makes it. Dark skinned folks are still a part of the country, although in obviously fewer numbers, and are often relegated to large refugee ghettos where Islamic extremism prospers. The rich whites have the freedom to live high above it all and "not think about it" while even the liberal anti-establishment whites are able to hole up in private enclaves and get high while people of color and whites with foreign dialects are put in cages and whisked away. They may be out of mind but they are never out of sight.I know that Alan Moore's source material serves to guide this choice but if they're going to gloss over the big picture concept of fascism vs. anarchism -- the two extremes that are the base of everything within the comic books -- and essentially bring it down to a question of neo-conservatism vs. revolutionary action, then maybe we could have had some brown people on the screen. Modern Day England has roots in the Middle East and Africa and those groups are growing. Surely, a near future UK would be even more culturally mixed.
Sci-fi films often create a very white future. Spielberg's futuristic movies all have this conceit. Minority Report's Washington D.C. is the cleanest and most vanilla the chocolate city has ever been. A.I. and Back to the Future, part II have similar issues. Even Will Smith's starring vehicle I, Robot lacks the multicultural casting any version of our soon-to-come years must have.
The world has become more diverse and more connected, not less. That Cuaron remembers this is achievement enough and should get you in the theatre. That it is, also, a spectacular movie that hits on all cylinders, comes in at under 2 hours, and leaves you with grim but hopeful thoughts of the world to come makes it one of the very best films of 2006 and the best sci-fi flick in ages.
This was originally posted on Negro Please on March 26, 2006. I want to reference it in a post I'm creating to talk about Children of Men and have yet to create a proper archive of the soon-to-be gone site, so here it sits.
V for Vendetta's
futuristic England is an all caucasian country. Apparently the
neo-conservatism masquerading as fascism in the film involved the
complete white-washing of what is currently a pretty diverse community.
Dark skin is no where to be found. It's odd for me that the Wachowski
Brothers would make that choice (or allow that choice to be made by the
director). One of the reasons I connect and enjoy the Matrix trilogy so
much is that it's a world of many hues with the heroes, to a person,
reflecting that multicultural aesthetic. I know that Alan Moore's
source material serves to guide this choice but if they're going to
gloss over the big picture concept of fascism vs. anarchism -- the two
extremes that are the base of everything within the comic books -- and
essentially bring it down to a question of neo-conservatism vs.
revolutionary action, then maybe we could have had some brown people on
the screen. Modern Day England has roots in the Middle East and Africa
and those groups are growing. Surely, a near future UK would be even
more culturally mixed.
But enough of my race hangups.
Or maybe not. It's interesting when we, as Americans, are confronted with revolutionary images we can sympathize with. After all, our country is built on the overthrow of one government for the creation of our own. Those images don't reconcile well in a post 9-11 America but V is compelling. He's seeking to overthrow a government who lies to its people, who institutes curfew, who seeks to keep order by opression and suppresion and the populace goes along with this very easily. My mind kept going to John Brown. How important were his "terrorist" actions at Harper's Ferry and before in moving the cause of abolition forward? Is he a hero or villain or something in between?
The same can be asked about V who uses violence and destruction to move his cause forward. The film is supposed to be raising the question of whether or not this push towards revolution, which is fueled mostly by vengeance, should be celebrated but doesn't really. Even at the key plot twist, we aren't really left with questions about V's "goodness".
There are some thought provoking elements to the film, however. Afterwards, there was a deep discussion about torture and terror, death penalties and revenge. For that I'll forgive the silly and unnecessary love story elements at the end, the sometimes ridiculous dialogue and the pacing of the flick. It felt longer than it should have and took far long to get to the hook of the story. But, for all its flaws, it's a good film and worth the money.
Just remember 2 things: In the future, the cool guys wear masquerade masks and speak in iambic pentameter and a revolution without dancing is one we don't want.
