films go boom
Nov. 4th, 2007 12:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethSo I decided on watching Equilibrium. There was something about the whole feeling-for-the-first-time thing that fit today.
It's just gloriously ambiguous, really. I mean, on the one hand the drugged-flat solution is basically cybermen without the clunky footwear, so clearly wrong. But the examples used for the glory of emotion... that 'tread on my dreams' line just can't be taken seriously no more, and as for the sequence with the puppies, I LMAO every time I really do. Which, okay, may make me a bad person, but come on, they put down all the people but he can't bring himself to kill a puppy? What's that saying? And then at the end it looks like they've traded a peaceful albeit empty life for the right to murder with a smile... shyeah, let's wave the banners and join that revolution... *facepalm*
But, you know, mixed in there there's some really glorious bits, like the time with the sunrise right after he stops taking the drug. Plus he's really pretty. And there's some quality violence going on. Not as pretty as it could be, the gun kata fairly clunky and mechanical compared to some of the dance-with-guns you get in some movies. Even the pretty violence reduced to rote learning, no fun at all. But it's so *messy*, you get blood spray and breaking bones and bits falling off people after he's had fun with knives. And all this is the argument for feeling? Well, yeah, because they were just as brutal with or without emotion, so really, what had they gained?
Killing people whilst calm and cool and believing it's for the greater good is always just that much scarier.
Making the guy in charge be a hypocrite breaking the rules himself, and also the thing where they erase due process (whatever that meant in that system), seems a bit cheap though. I mean, it makes the argue about a slightly different thing than the central 'is feeling worth it' bit.
I like the acting though. All the grades between 'no emotion' and 'emotion for the first time' and 'pretending he's got no emotion' has some nice stuff going on. And the small moments where he's seeking sensation in the everyday, where even the totally uniform lives they've got aren't without interest once he starts to feel, that's good stuff.
It's just expressing the whole thing through ultra violence makes it a really edged argument. Is it worth feeling+killing? We don't get to see the war that made that society ask the question, but what we do see leaves the question very messy.
Nice.
It's just gloriously ambiguous, really. I mean, on the one hand the drugged-flat solution is basically cybermen without the clunky footwear, so clearly wrong. But the examples used for the glory of emotion... that 'tread on my dreams' line just can't be taken seriously no more, and as for the sequence with the puppies, I LMAO every time I really do. Which, okay, may make me a bad person, but come on, they put down all the people but he can't bring himself to kill a puppy? What's that saying? And then at the end it looks like they've traded a peaceful albeit empty life for the right to murder with a smile... shyeah, let's wave the banners and join that revolution... *facepalm*
But, you know, mixed in there there's some really glorious bits, like the time with the sunrise right after he stops taking the drug. Plus he's really pretty. And there's some quality violence going on. Not as pretty as it could be, the gun kata fairly clunky and mechanical compared to some of the dance-with-guns you get in some movies. Even the pretty violence reduced to rote learning, no fun at all. But it's so *messy*, you get blood spray and breaking bones and bits falling off people after he's had fun with knives. And all this is the argument for feeling? Well, yeah, because they were just as brutal with or without emotion, so really, what had they gained?
Killing people whilst calm and cool and believing it's for the greater good is always just that much scarier.
Making the guy in charge be a hypocrite breaking the rules himself, and also the thing where they erase due process (whatever that meant in that system), seems a bit cheap though. I mean, it makes the argue about a slightly different thing than the central 'is feeling worth it' bit.
I like the acting though. All the grades between 'no emotion' and 'emotion for the first time' and 'pretending he's got no emotion' has some nice stuff going on. And the small moments where he's seeking sensation in the everyday, where even the totally uniform lives they've got aren't without interest once he starts to feel, that's good stuff.
It's just expressing the whole thing through ultra violence makes it a really edged argument. Is it worth feeling+killing? We don't get to see the war that made that society ask the question, but what we do see leaves the question very messy.
Nice.