Just finished watching Twelve Monkeys. The movie sits uneasily with me on a Sunday night, although I doubt its effects would have been much different any other night. It’s a similar reaction as the ones I had to Gattaca or Blade Runner or my reading of 1984 (the latter being far and away the most disturbing). Cracked visions of a dystopian future, some anti-paradise where our appetites are all we have left and the divergences between tiers of humanity are split down the seams, in plain view… And to top it all off with underlying commentaries about the nature of reality, the sanity we take for granted, time, love, all of it… I really need to cut back my consumption of so much brainy sci-fi.
It was a good movie, though. If nothing else I relish the production design in these films, the nuggets of the world they create for our minds to embrace. The amazing thing is the coherence of the sets–every detail supports the mood of the scene perfectly, and on a higher level, the film’s themes. It’s not realistic, even the sets that supposedly portray the present are more run-down than could be credible, but that’s the luxury of film. But what do I know. I imagine there are places out there where the squalor is even more abject than I could get my mind around. The movie is an update of La Jetée, a French film made in the early ’60s that we watched a few weeks ago, and somehow I liked the earlier film better than its remake. It’s not just the notion that all remakes are dillutions of the originals, but somehow the more thought-provoking elements are more pure, more unadulterated by the trappings of style than the later film. Less is more in this case.
Now for that hot shower, then bed. It’s been raining all day today, and I’ve walked out in it too much…
and…
what an awesome soundtrack!
although it is far too freaky a movie to be taken too lightly…
Wow, really? Who’s on the soundtrack? Or is it just the movie’s score, like Gladiator?
Twelve Monkeys…My roommate and I are definitely fans of that movie. A little strange maybe, but definitely a quality movie in our opinions. Mother’s Day is next weekend. In light of that, I might be home next weekend for church. Definitely I think for lunch.
Cool. You definitely should watch the movie it’s made from, La Jetée. It’s kind of artsy, so you might be able to find it at that rental place in the Mission Valley shopping center, if you have a card.
Did Mark get hold of you about meeting on Thursday?
its the movie’s score… :)