Week 2

Fight Club

          Fight club has always been one of my favorite movies. I can only think of a few other films that blew my mind like this one did, and even less that I repeatedly watched as many times. However, I never even considered it to be a dystopian movie. After watching it again with the theme of dystopia in mind (and after reading Naturalism and Dystopia in Fight Club), my mind was blown again. In Fight Club, modern day life is portrayed as dystopian.

          The main criticism of this movie is America’s consumerist culture. As Tyler Durden describes it, we’re all “working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.” People tend to define themselves based on their material possessions, as the main character in Fight Club used to do until his apartment was destroyed. When Edward Norton tells the police officer that everything in his apartment was who he was, we are told that his character is materialistic, but also that he is now on the path to being reborn, in a sense.

          Losing his apartment and his possessions brings the main character one step closer to rock bottom, which is where his alter ego Tyler Duren wants him to get. At that point he can reach the enlightenment that Tyler was talking about during the chemical burn scene (and which I believe he reaches in the end after shooting himself and exorcising Tyler Durden).

          In some ways, this movie is similar to 1984. Edward Norton’s character is trapped in the middle class, being told what to do by advertisements and his employer rather than Big Brother, and secretly hating it. He even meets a girl who feels the same way he does and despises her at first. When he loses everything he’s freed from the shackles of society and he (as Tyler Durden) rallies the members of his Fight Club (who are much like the proletariat in 1984; nameless people who are always in the background) to join Project Mayhem.  This is where his philosophy comes in; “It’s only after we've lost everything that we’re free to do anything.” Tyler believes that if enough chaos is caused they can bring about temporary anarchy. He doesn't want to change society, he wants to break it down and rebuild it, because fixing a broken system is only a temporary solution.

           Personally, I’d have to agree with that philosophy. I've noticed many problems relating to how our society is focused on consumerism and material possessions (like I’m sure many people have) but I don’t really plan on doing anything about it. I like living comfortably, and when I graduate I plan on looking for a well-paying job rather than a job I’d enjoy. I can see the problems with my way of thinking, but I can live with it, and the only way of making people like me agree to give up this way of thinking is by forcing us to do so.

          Although the themes of this movie are very important, I’d also like to mention the cool visuals briefly. One thing I always loved about this movie was all of the little hints that Tyler Durden and the main character were the same person. The most obvious being the flashes of Brad Pitt that we see in the beginning of the movie, before the main character meets his alter ego for the first time. 

Minority Report

          Not all dystopian movies necessarily have totalitarian dictators in charge. Minority Report is one of these films. It questions our penal system, and makes us think of how technological advances could enhance or pervert it.

         The main character, John Anderton, is the head of a police force that stops crime before it happens. This is done by a machine hooked up to three children with precognitive abilities. The machine shows the members of this police force, PreCrime, where and when a murder will take place. They then arrest the person in question before he commits the crime.

         This police force is widely criticized in the beginning of the film and rightfully so, as the viewer finds out. Anderton gets framed for a murder he didn't (or won't) commit, which we eventually find out was perpetrated by the Director of the program, who did it to conceal the fact that the system is flawed.

         This movie raises several questions. Firstly, how far should the government be allowed to take preventative action? If we actually had a way of detecting crime before it happened, would it still make sense to arrest people for crimes they didn't commit?

         One of the problems with this is that certain crimes are committed under different circumstances. For example, a killing someone as a crime of passion isn't the same as a planned out murder. Also, there's the obvious issue of trusting that no errors are made in a system that's fallible. 

        Moreover, the government in this movie is very intrusive when it comes to looking for "criminals", specifically sending robot spiders into private residences for a forced body count. Clearly the government in this society has too much power, which is only made worse with the addition of the power to arrest suspects when technically no crime was committed. I also couldn't help but notice that the police's "sick stick" was a bit inhumane, in addition to a statement made by a Precrime officer: "If you don't want your son to see terror, keep him away from me." All in all, the police force in this film have too much unchecked power over civilians.

        Another issue in this movie is everyone's eyes. There's a great loss of privacy when anywhere you go people can scan your retinas and find out everything about you. Not to mention the scarily accurate (when you've got your own eyes on at least) advertisement booths. Am I the only one that thought of Facebook's data collecting apps during these scenes? 

One other point in this movie interested me very much. During the scene when John Anderton talks to his warden friend, he mentions that the prisoners are all dreaming in a coma like state. We do see John being put in one of those pods at one point...

      This might just be me looking too deep into the dialogue, but I have an uneasy feeling that the ending might have been too good to be true, and that John Anderton is actually in one of those jail pods dreaming up this perfect ending.

The Handmaid's Tale

        This movie was in some ways worse than 1984, and that's saying something. Although it's not nearly as bleak, at least rape and sexual abuse weren't issues in Oceania. 

        The punishments given out in this movie were terrible. The hanging of the handmaid convicted of sleeping with a doctor was particularly disturbing, because they made the other handmaids kill one of their own. The unsettling part, however, was that most of the handmaids were zealously obeying without hesitation. That scene, in addition to the so called "rapist" they killed reminded me of the 2 minutes hate scene from 1984. 

       The whole process the handmaids have to go through is incredibly degrading, from the moment Offred arrives at the Red Center. She is told (along with other women) that they are being given "freedom from instead of freedom to," as if she was a child that couldn't understand the difference. The sex she's forced to have with a creepy old man, expecting to have her baby taken away at birth, knowing she'll be sent away somewhere terrible if she can't conceive. It all was just plain depressing.

        Something I didn't really understand was the fact that so many of the handmaids were so complacent. Many of the women in the red center were childish and naive, but I expected more to be rebellious, especially with Aunt Lydia as their instructor. Speaking of which, the actress playing Lydia did a very good job, because I hated her guts every second she was on screen.

       The colors in this movie were particularly interesting. Red was the lowest color, that of the handmaids. But there were also women in brown, who were instructors of sorts, blue for the rich women, and men seem to be wearing whatever they wish. Also, it was interesting seeing Robert Duvall playing someone so different from THX 1138. Or with hair for that matter. Somehow he came out creepier than he was in THX, mostly due to the incredibly disturbing sex scenes and awkward talks with Offred.

      Of all the dystopian movies I've seen so far, this one was one of the most depressing.