From its inception, mainstream movies have been set in a future world that exhibits many of the ills that are found in the contemporary. This allows the film to adopt a critical stance but without risking a confrontation with the powerful financial interests that dominate mainstream movie-making.
The future as dystopia can assume one of two guises. It can be a world in which there is material abundance and sybaritic pleasures but one governed by strict rules that prohibit personal expression, even on the level of sexual intimacy. Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" is an inspiration for these sorts of movies, ranging from Woody Allen's "Sleeper" to Sylvester Stallone's "Demolition Man." Both of these include a comic scene in which the protagonist, who has woken up from a Rip Van Winkle sleep, is shocked to discover that sex in the future does not involve actual intercourse, but electromechanical substitutes. In all other respects, the citizens enjoy the good life despite being ultimately controlled by a paternalistic state. The other model is George Orwell's "1984 , which is far less pleasant across the board. There are harsh living conditions, force-fed propaganda messages and brutal repression directed against dissidents. Obviously, Orwell's future is a lot closer to the one that late capitalist society seems to be evolving toward. The very first foray into a scary future was Fritz Lang's "Metropolis," a film that featured factory workers slaving away in the bowels of the city under the control of a master class that lived in luxury on the surface. They ultimately rebel against their conditions in a manner that must have resonated with the average worker in Weimar Germany, where the film first appeared. Despite its ostensibly radical vision, Marxists did not exactly greet the film with open arms. They were repelled by a class collaborationist message that involved the tyrant's son interceding on behalf of the workers after he wakes up to the system's injustice. While one might quibble with a certain kind of dogmatism that failed to recognize a great work of art on its own terms, the critics were hitting on something that pervades all such films. That is the tendency to feature a kind of super-hero who liberates the oppressed rather to depict the oppressed liberating themselves. The latter message would appear to defy long-standing studio parameters, even more so than those involving sexual taboos. These considerations provide a context for evaluating three recent films that are of ascending interest, both cinematically and politically: "V for Vendetta", "District B13 , and "Children of Men". full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/01/01/3-scary-future-movies/
