The name M. Night Shyamalan is starting to sound very pretentious.

Although the name is a bit difficult to remember, people usually still manage to mumble something about M and Night followed by some uncomprehensible nonsense. But this confusion adds to its mysterious and intriguing aspect, as it did for the people of Eastwick who tried hard to remember the name Daryl Van Horne. The mystic increased as the director gained international fame with The 6th Sense (1999) and then with Unbreakable (2000). After these two films, M. Night Shyamalan could fully live up this his name by having it displayed in large print above the title of his films, with studio marketing people proudly displaying ‘a film by M. Night Shyamalan’ or ‘M. Night Shyamalan presents’ as if the director, after only less than a handful of films to his credit, could be compared to a Hitchcock or to other Hollywood directing legends.

Unfortunately, Shyamalan has failed to live up to the mystic of his name and to the hype of his reputation. While The 6th Sense was a good, not great, movie, Unbreakable started to show a few weaknesses while Signs (2002) clearly demonstrated that the director was either going through a really bad spell, or that, and this is more likely, the 6th Sense had been a fluke. His films since have proved the later and his most recent, The Happening, is just one more nail in the coffin of this so called new master of horror.

The Happening, about an unknown and never explained suicide-inducing toxin spreading across the North East of the US, has some good moments, especially in the first 30 minutes, and offers an interesting take on man vs nature. However, Shyamalan can not keep it up and proceeds to ruin the next 55 minutes by instering silly comic scenes whose purpose is a total mystery to me and by using so many cliches that one can not help but to feel that the director is trying very hard to scare us. The desire to scare overcomes to need to remain realistic with the result being that the viewer questions rather than feels. In addition, Mark Wahlberg, whom we know is capable of pulling some interesting performances as he did in The Departed (2006), feels totally lost and confused as a romantic scientist and the chemistry between him and Zooey Deschanel is equivalent to mixing bleach with vinegar.

For reasons unknown to me, as I tried to recall the various Batman films and their progression over the past 19 years (excluding the 1943 and 1966 versions), I began to draw a very loose association with the James Bond franchise. Not in terms of content naturally, but rather in terms of tone and mood. First came the darkness of Sean Connery, then the silliness of Roger Moore, followed by the suaveness of Pierce Brosnan (I am conveniently omitting two more James Bond, I know) and today we once again have rawness and darkness with Daniel Craig. It feels to me that the Batman franchise has followed a similar path, with Christopher Nolan’s two Batman films picking up where Tim Burton’s left off, and possibly even going further. In between, we had the very forgettable and silly Batman films of Joel Schumacher, which I am sure Clooney and Kilmer are still to this day trying very hard to erase from their memory and filmography.

At my own peril, I will take the comparison between the latest James Bond film (I have not seen Quantum of Solace (2008) so I am referring to Casino Royale (2006)) and The Dark Knight further.
They both try to demark themselves from the legacy of the franchise and try to create something fresh. They both attempt very hard to emphasize human conflict and to marry emotional depth with raw and effective action. And last but not least, they are both extremely minimalist in their approach. While both running at 2 ½ hours, there is little fat in either of them, with the accent being on relentless pace and action. Only the bare minimum of information is given as scenes are trimmed for speed and progression.

Christopher Nolan’s relatively brief career has been remarkable so far. The brilliant and already cult classic Memento (2000), the moody and visually striking remake of Insomnia (2002), the decent but provoking The Prestige (2006) and the two Batman films, all are clearly the marks of someone with a high level of control, skill and understanding of the cinematic medium and of its techniques. Darkness also seems an underlying thread of these films, in visual terms and through their subject matters.

With The Dark Knight, Nolan delivers a very accomplished film that epitomizes the high quality entertainment film. Most aspects of the movie are solid and the result is a non-stop thrill ride. Unfortunately, this focus on pace means that occasionally, the scenes flow from one to the next in a somewhat abrupt and not always logical way, leaving the viewer with some unanswered questions. Like a comic book that has a limited capacity for background information, The Dark Knight jumps from major scene to major scene, leaving out many things in between.
As a closing note, it is worth mentioning the performance of Heath Ledger. His death prompted a wave of calls for an Oscar nomination, with people stating that his performance had been no less than magnificent. I initially took this with high dose of skepticism. However, having now watched the movie, I can say that Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker is indeed spectacular and when considered together with his performance in Brokeback Mountain (2005), hints at what could have become a very very fine actor.

It is difficult to dislike films such as La Antena, films that demark themselves so clearly from the mediocrity of the average, films that experiment and push the envelop of the medium. La Antena, an Argentinean film about a dystopic Dark City (1998)-like world where a TV mogul plots total control of the city is so visually arresting and creative that one can only applaud such artistic inclinations.

La Antena has been called an homage to silent cinema since there are indeed no words being spoken, with the exception of the occasional and deliberate sound. The constant music, appropriate but at times trying, also has its roots in the piano accompaniments of the 1920s. And the visual style relies on black and white, intertitles, grainy textures, and other tricks and tools that are more or less reminiscent of a silent film. The eccentricity of the style and the playfulness of the ideas bring Bunuel and Dali to mind rather than Lubitsch or DW Griffith.

Yet, for all of its visual candy and dystopian intrigue, La Antena feels a tad flat. Like Guy Maddin’s Brand Upon the Brain, its lightness of content and the weaknesses of its screenplay become exposed once the initial visual intrigue begins to wear off. At that point, the viewing experience becomes superficial, a mere exercise in visual stimulation, with the content itself bringing little reward.

Still, from an experimental point of view, La Antena is well worth watching.

A couple of interesting things happened shortly before i left my flat to go watch Wall-E (2008).

First, i finished reading Citizen Cyborg by James Hughes. The book, which i will soon review on this blog, makes a compelling case for Democratic Transhumanism, and as a subset of this, for extending certain rights to non-Humans (be it Apes, Dolphins, Elephants, Robots or Aliens…), under the argument that we have an obligation to treat anyone or anything capable of feelings and of self-awareness in the same manner (or almost the same manner, depending on various criteria) that we would (should) treat our fellow human beings. The second thing that happened is that i came across two very recent articles that proved timely and appropriate in their relevance to Pixar’s new film: Emotional robots in the spotlight and When Human Rights Extend to Nonhumans.

As a Democratic Transhumanist and Technogaianist who grew up absorbing large quantities of Science Fiction cinema and literature, i have never felt anything remotely bizarre or ‘abnormal’ in the idea of giving some human rights (and one day, equal rights) to non-human creatures. It is a very arrogant notion to think that only human beings deserve the right to not be tortured, beaten or imprisoned. All animals today deserve at least to be treated with fairness and in a similar fashion to the way we (should) treat human beings who suffer from mental or physical handicaps. And the more intelligent animals are and then become (through genetic engineering), the more rights they should receive. The same applies to robots. Many people continue to harbor negative feelings towards robots, and most cinematic or media representations of robots and artificial intelligences still tend to focus on dystopic visions and worse-case scenarios for the future, but as soon as you place these people in front of a little machine that makes cute sounds or starts to even remotely act human (Honda’s ASIMO or Sony’s Qrio for example), their fear begins to alleviate and the possibility suddenly arises that this machine might be worthy of our empathy after all. As machines become more intelligent and more human, we will learn to treat them with respect, and one day, we might even forget that they are machines (overcoming in the process the challenges posed by the theory of The Uncanny Valley). This process will not be easy and we can expect to meet many Luddites and robot-haters (human-racists) along the way, the type of narrow-minded and hateful people that Steven Spielberg portrayed in his film Artificial Intelligence: A.I (2001). But ultimately, old-style humans will become just one of several types of creatures existing on Earth and on other planets, and issues of rights will turn out to be increasingly relevant and important.

Enters WALL-E, Pixar’s latest magical creation, a little box of a robot (who looks uncannily like E.T (1982)) designed to collect the waste that has covered the surface of the Earth. Humans have long left the planet, unable to co-exist with the garbage that they created. Instead, they now live in gigantic spaceships, their every need attended to by machines, and their ‘humanity’ slowly disappearing as they become fat, illiterate and totally devoid of social aptitudes. This dystopic representation of the future is very much based on early 21st century fears regarding our abuse of the environment and of natural resources, obesity, sedentary lifestyles, addiction to the internet, and loss of old-fashioned values and traditions, but it fails to take into account the technological advances that will make some of these problems obsolete. Still, these issues are today very real, and even if progress helps us overcome them in the future, they must nonetheless be addressed today. The pollution of our planet, for example, by our relentless need for energy and consumption, and by the greed of corporations, is slowly turning into a global catastrophe with potentially dire consequences for Earth and its inhabitants.

It is thus on this fairly bleak canvas that Pixar paints a love story between two robots who risk their lives to help bring life and humanity back to a desolate Earth. Pixar has repeatedly shown with Toy Story (1995), Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), and Ratatouille (2007) that animation has the power to move adults and children alike and that animated films deserve to be given the same credit as non-animated features. With WALL-E, they manage to develop a powerful and extremely moving love story between two machines, and to raise several pertinent current issues in the process. Some have argued that the film loses some of its edge as it goes along, especially with its fairly cliché happy ending. However, and i like bleakness as much as the next Frenchman, i personally see WALL-E as a fairy tale that needs no apology for its happy resolution. Pixar already pushed the envelope plenty with this animated feature and I don’t think that keeping the bleakness going to the very end would have been appropriate. So simply let the joy and entertainment of ‘WALL-E the love story’ overcome you and view its morale as a call for awareness and action rather than as an apocalyptic message. Oh, and don’t forget: robots can be human too.

Before the uniqueness of Mad Max (1979), before the madness of Burning Man, and long before the flatness of Waterworld (1995), came the inventiveness of A Boy and his Dog. An unjustly forgotten apocalyptic tale of a young man and his telepathic dog wandering the desert in search of food and sex after the world has blown itself to smithereens, this film has become a cult classic and should be mandatory viewing for any Sci-Fi aficionados.

Satirical, disturbing, funny, unpleasant, anarchistic with strong macho undertones, critical of a petty middle class suburban mentality, A Boy and his Dog has got enough ammunition to rub many people the wrong way. Its social satire of the present is much more powerful than its representation of the future, and like other Sci-Fi films from the 70s, such as Logan’s Run (1976) and THX 1138 (1971), it certainly makes clear that our individual freedom and personal choice must prevail over potential collective, conservative and hygienic visions of the future.

Taking place in the Paris of the very near future, this French cyber thriller, reminiscent of the slightly better Renaissance (2006), tries very hard to be noir, cool and hip but pretty much fails on all levels.

The de rigueur techno bluish-chrome cinematography is of little help in bringing this story about cloning and memory implants to an above average level.
The lead character can’t act even if his life depended on it, making one wonder why some directors seem to think that mediocre actors are a good choice to play unemotional black turtleneck-wearing tough guys.

There are a couple of somewhat interesting scenes where the technology discussed in the film is displayed, such as remote surgery and memory removal and implantation, but, overall, Chrysalis is a bit of a yawner.

And we would like to thank all the corporate sponsors whose brands are shamelessly and promiscuously displayed throughout the film….

Terrible acting, incredibly badly written script, poorly developed characters, horrendous and annoying soundtrack, total rip off of previous films, complete lack of creativity in terms of visualizing the future 25 years from now, amateurish film making…that about sums us this so-called film about a quarantined Scotland in the year 2030 after a virus has killed most of the population.

Any credibility that Neil Marshall gained with The Descent (boy am I glad that I did not join many others in praising it) should be immediately revoked and his name sent back to the depths of obscurity from which it came.

Doomsday has got to be one of the worst films in recent memory and I am very sorry I watched it.

This channel 4 documentary, narrated by Christopher Sykes provides an overview of Aubrey de Grey’s efforts to defeat aging. An interesting look at the man who believes that we can perhaps abolish death within the next three decades and whose SENS research into aging is the source of much controversy, it nonetheless offers little new information for those of us who follow de Grey’s work on a regular basis.

I personally even found the selection of shots and angles to be at times purposely unflattering towards the various people that make up the anti-aging group by depicting them as a bit wacky and outside of the ‘norm’. In most cases, the pro-de Grey individuals are interviewed in their home or in a ‘non-institutionalized’ setting, which provides more opportunity for personal judgement and subjective conclusions, whereas the anti-longevity group is mainly seen in laboratories or expensive offices filled with books, as if to tell us that these people know what they are talking about and thus, that they should be trusted.

Does one need to be weird to want to live forever? That seems to be what this documentary would want you to believe. It also reinforces the cliché that if you are not within the norm (whatever this means) then you are strange and eccentric.
As I already explained when I reviewed Radical Evolution, it is interesting that the people who tend to be opposed to a drastically increased or to an unlimited lifespan tend to view those who seek to abolish death as mad geniuses who will do the world more harm than good. They also believe that today’s definition of normal is the one that must be upheld forever, the one that must endure. This obviously implies a complete disregard for what used to be considered normal (a very slippery concept when appraised in the context of history and within cultural considerations), and naturally, for what could become normal. It also implies, in my view, a total selfishness and narrow-minded belief that what we have today is as good as it is ever going to get and that our 20th and 21st century values (or rather, their values) are better and more appropriate than past or future values.

The ‘humanistic’ and preferred angle chosen by many who are opposed to eternal life is that death is what gives meaning to it all (see my review of The Fountain). Without death, one wouldn’t fully be alive. Quoting Freeman Dyson, ‘our humanity depends on the old ones getting out of the way’. Perhaps it is so; perhaps our definition of humanity today depends on newer generations replacing the old ones. But at the centre of these discussions is the word humanity. The anti-aging camp, and futurists in general, accept the idea that our humanity, which is what defines us in terms of values, belief systems, qualities and characteristics, can continue to evolve, even if it means abandoning today’s definition. The critics, on the other hand, seem incapable of accepting a future that will have redefined what it means to be human, especially not if we are the ones who have taken over the process of evolution.
Leave it to nature they say. Do not interfere with the natural order of things. But many of the humans race’s great accomplishments have occurred due to its interference with the natural order of things. If this were not the case, we would be living in a very different world today. I believe it is in the nature of Man to seek control over its own destiny. We live at a time when technology has given us the tools to do so with unparalleled assertion, confidence and power. We are now in control and to negate this potential would be foolish. Rather than negation, what we need is proper monitoring and ethical management of these issues and for the sceptics to apply their knowledge and concerns towards ensuring, not that this research does not happen since it will regardless, but rather, that it does happen in the safest and most beneficial way for all.

Documentaries can be very manipulative and can often play to the already established opinions and beliefs of its viewers. While watching ‘Do you want to live Forever?’, I couldn’t help using my own biases to filter the information I was absorbing. And in doing so, I found Sherwin Nuland and Preston Estep’s (despite Etep’s role in anti-aging research) opinions and arguments against de Grey to be filled with the exact same fear, envy and selfishness that they accuse him of. I tremble when I hear Nuland stating that the world could be destroyed by people such as de Grey and I fear that it is instead the Nulands of this world, the people who keep telling others what is best for them and who keep referring to the norm as the ideal mode of living, as if stuck in some 1950’s suburban ideology, whom we must fear the most.

De Grey is an enigmatic character who has made it his purpose to defeat aging. Whatever his reasons are (and this is another aspect of the documentary that I had problems with; this need to connect de Grey’s quest with a lack of love as a child or with some kind of egomaniac drive), his passion is undeniable and his approach, as unorthodox and threatening as it may be to some of the established scientific community, can only bring freshness, challenge, increased awareness and interest, and, let us hope, faster results.

Related websites:

www.Mprize.org
www.ImmInst.org
www.sens.org
www.longevitymeme.org
www.fightaging.org

I am grateful to Francis Lawrence, who previously directed the decent comic book adaptation Constantine (2005), for bringing seriousness, darkness and sobriety to the Hollywood Sci-Fi blockbuster. In a world where the Michael Bays are working hard to reduce the global IQ and EQ levels with mind numbing big budget action, it is refreshing to see a director trying to add cleverness to escapist entertainment.

I am Legend is based on the 1954 influential novel by Richard Matheson, and it is now the third time that this apocalyptic tale of the last man on earth, somehow immune to a virus that has either killed everyone else or turned them into vampire/zombie hybrids, has been made into a film. The Last Man on Earth (1964) with Vincent Price, has become a cult classic and set the standard for all future zombie films (George A. Romero has often credited the novel as his inspiration for Night of the Living Dead (1968)) while The Omega Man (1971) with Charlton Heston, who brings to the film his Planet of the Apes (1968) / Soylent Green (1973) ’screw the world’ cynism, does the original novel less justice and suffers from several problems, least of which is the laughability of its creatures.

One of the most annoying trademarks of Hollywood blockbusters, at least to me, is the supposedly funny one-liners that the hero typically spurts out in the most improbable situations. Normally used to alleviate tension and to bring lightness where there should be none, the blockbuster funny one-liner dumbs down and cheapens the cinematic experience. I was able to count only one in I am Legend (‘I like Shrek’) which is a major improvement over the number that can be found, for example, in two of Will Smith’s previous Sci-Fi efforts, Independence Day (1996) and I, Robot (2004) or in Michael Bay’s most recent disaster, Transformers (2007).
One is also the figure I came up with for the number of really poorly scripted scenes (Bob Marley Sr.), which, again, is quite an achievement for a film this expensive and this heavily marketed.

That is not to say that I am Legend has no other flaws but, again, when measured within the greater considerations of the blockbuster, these seem fairly harmless and do not detract too much from the overall viewing experience. The sobriety is at times reminiscent of The Quiet Earth (1985) while a couple of chilling scenes will bring 28 Days Later (2002) to mind and even The Descent (2005) in one case.

…Equilibrium can only rehash themes already explored in 1984, Fahrenheit 451 and THX 1138. It portrays a future where knowledge and individual thinking are forbidden and are controlled through brainwashing propaganda and drug taking. What is interesting about this film however, is its representation of the authoritarian and totalitarian city. Shot in various locations in Berlin (Olympic Stadium, Postdamer Platz) as well as in Rome, the film’s production design is clearly heavily influenced by Nazi and Fascist architecture. The city of Equilibrium is one that is dominated by order, symmetry (seen throughout the ages as an indication of harmony), and monumental, bare and functional buildings, in the Rohbau style that was so favoured by Hitler and his architect Albert Speer. The bland, smooth, and characterless surfaces of these buildings relies on brick and granite for their effect, echoing Hilter’s words in 1937 that “‘only the great cultural documents of humanity made of granite and marble’ offer stability and certainty…” , and result in effigies whose main purpose it is to lower Man’s sense of individuality. In addition, the citizens of the city tend to gather in open plazas and squares (of rather classicists designs) for worship and meditation, an architectural, urban planning and propaganda stratagem that was at the core of the design of the city of Berlin in the 1930s.

Excerpt from Architectural Representations of the City in Science Fiction Cinema.

Lost Horizon, based on the 1931 novel by James Hilton, cost Columbia 2.5 million dollars, making it the most expensive American film up until 1937. And it was indeed heavily marketed as the mightiest picture of all time, promising adventure, escapism and grandiose visions of utopia. The reputation that Frank Capra obtained thanks to the success of Mr Deeds goes to Town (36) and It happened one night (34) allowed him to get the green light for this extravagant production about a group of men, and one woman, who are kidnapped in Shanghai and taken to the lost city of Shangri-La. There they discover a utopic society deprived of the ills and evils of modern society, a peaceful and fulfilled community that will put to the test each of the character’s resolve, personality and willingness to rediscover traditional values.
In spite of the escapist and moral nature of its theme, Lost Horizon was a commercial failure, and the critics were not too impressed either. In a similar fashion to Things to Come (36), Lost Horizon’s ambitious theme scared many who probably saw communist propaganda in it, and was most likely regarded as too naïve by others. Yet, its message, while clearly self-indulgent at times, is a powerful one that has even more significance today. The increasing power of global markets and the dominance of capitalism at the expense of basic human rights and values was already an important and scary theme to some at the beginning of the 20th century, and even more so after the crash of 1929, and yet, today, in a world where there is plenty of evidence of rising inequalities, the message of Lost Horizon continues to be perceived as naïve…

This British low budget mishmash of cyberpunk, horror and exploitation has become a bit of a cult classic in certain circles. The idea was apparently entirely stolen from a story called Shock! that appeared in the 80s in the comic book 2000AD, which is a bit of a shame since it takes away from one of the film’s main attributes: its originality (in spite of several commonalities with Terminator).
Nonetheless, equipped with a meagre budget of 100,000 dollars, Richard Stanley managed to create quite a dreadful, claustrophobic and apocalyptic atmosphere that effectively captured the spirit of decay, waste and techno-paranoia associated with Cyberpunk. The film also contains several musical references that many connoisseurs will enjoy.
Unfortunately, beyond the visual and musical aspects, and with the exception of a few cheap thrills and a couple of funny cheesy lines, the film has little to offer and feels quite amateurish and boring at times.

For a certain crowd only.

Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451, based on Bradburry’s novel of the same name, seems to exist outside of the standard city space. More reminiscent of a modern city’s inner suburbs, the architecture on display is eclectic and often cold and lacking humanity.

As with Godard’s Alphaville, the low budget of Fahrenheit 451 meant that all exterior scenes were shot on location (Maidenhead, UK). Truffaut evidently selected buildings that epitomized 1950s and 1960s urban planning gone wrong. The apartment block or tower no longer carries hope of an urban renaissance and as a solver of society’s problems.

Instead, it is portrayed as lacking beauty and humanity, a vertical cage in which to house the less privileged, and, in the context of the film, the non-conformists and dissidents.

Excerpt from Architectural Representations of the City in Science Fiction Cinema.

Godard’s Alphaville, shot on a very low budget in 1965 Paris, is the director’s take on Orwell’s 1984, capitalism, modernism and the eradication of free will through rationality and efficiency.

The city, beautifully shot by Raoul Coultard, is turned into a cold, modernist island where buildings of glass and concrete stand as an effigy to science and dehumanization. Most of the scenes are shot in modernist interiors and exteriors, which could have been designed by Le Corbusier himself. But Godard’s vision turns the modernist dream upside down and associates the architecture with the end of free will and the disappearance of non-conformity.

Unlike Lang’s vision of an ultra-modernist city of the future, with its skyscrapers reaching for the sky, Godard’s Alphaville is more spread out and few very tall buildings emerge. The elite continues to live in different areas of the city from the ‘little’ people, but the boundaries are less clearly defined and the sense of height as an association of power seems to dominate less than in Metropolis or even Things to Come. A man of his time, Godard seems to have been able to anticipate post-modernist concerns towards architecture and the city.

Excerpt from Architectural Representations of the City in Science Fiction Cinema.

In Code 46, Michael Winterbottom sends mixed messages about the city of the very near future. On the one hand, the effective cinematography captures beautiful images of Shanghai, London and Dubai to create a post-modernist and exotic view of the city that blends concerns for overpopulation and the impact of technology on individual freedom with a sense of acceptance and beauty towards the alienation created by the modern city. And on the other hand, the lead protagonists are shown to escape to a more ‘rural’ and primitive lifestyle, filling the narrative with a sense of nostalgia for a past when less was available but men were more free.

In the process, the film distorts space completely by mixing shots of various cities to give the impression of another (Hong Kong is Seattle) and by inserting spaces of desert where there should be none, portraying Shanghai as an overcrowded, fenced-in island surrounding by a sea of waste lands. The end result, which feels at times like a music video, portrays the city in a fragmented and ephemeral way, but with enough respect that the problems discussed in the film and the blame associated seem to somehow be shifted away from the city. The city is no longer responsible, simply the place where man’s experiments and the inevitable journey of progress occur.

Excerpt from Architectural Representations of the City in Science Fiction Cinema.

If, like me, you enjoyed Rapture, A raucous tour of cloning, Transhumanism and the new era of immortality, you will undoubtedly be captivated by Radical Evolution. Whereas Brian Alexander focused mainly on the history of genetics and Transhumanism, Joel Garreau propels us full speed ahead towards the future, not only by discussing some of the various ‘enhancements’ that await human beings in the short to medium term, but also by exploring what the term ‘human nature’ really means through the examination of three possible scenarios for the future of the human race….

The Heaven scenario is exemplified by such illustrious people as Raymond Kurzweil, Eric Drexler, Nick Bostrom, Marvin Minsky, Hans Moravec, Vernor Vinge, and Gregory Stock (who actually stands slightly outside of this group based on his stronger beliefs in the benefits and practicality of germline genetic engineering over what he describes as cyber exuberance) and is based on the belief that the Singularity is near, the point at which technological advancement will become so rapid that the possibilities will become endless…

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This is a series of answers by various thinkers from all around the globe who were invited to The Table of Free Voices, a dropping knowledge (the NGO i work for) initiative that took place in Berlin, Germany on September 9th, 2006.

Mohammed Arkoun

It’s a scary future if you think about cities like Mexico City or Cairo, which are approaching 17 million habitants or more. But the infrastructures of these very old cities, especially Cairo, Bombay, Karachi or Jakarta, etc. are still the same as they were at the beginning of the 20th century in some districts. And the actual city policy is far from considering the new problems of urban areas and the pressures on urban areas. The cities are becoming a place of confrontation, a place where the collective memory disintegrates, a place of social ruptures, a place where frustration accumulates, where people backtrack to their individual level or to the level of a group what we fearfully call communitarianism which becomes more and more important in urban areas, and not only in rural areas as it was before.

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I am offended as I was misled. I was misled to believe that Sunshine is a grown-up, serious and spiritual Sci-Fi flick. Never mind that that I had the chance to visit the set in London and that I read the script in its early stages, thinking that it felt a lot like many other movies I had already watched. I am still offended. Especially considering that Sunshine is fairly grown-up, restrained and ‘realistic’ for about 70% of the film, and thus raises our expectations and gives us the impression that we might just be watching some quality Sci-Fi, until that seriousness dissolves into a explosion of pseudo-horror nonsense that unfortunately brings nothing to the film, and on the contrary, takes much away from its chances at passing on any kind of spiritual message. Instead of aiming for a Solaris or a 2001, it ends feeling like a not very scary Event Horizon. Pity, as Sunshine offered plenty of quality moments, some impactful visuals, and so much potential for raising the bar of Science Fiction cinema…

Peter Bradshaw and Philip French of the Guardian rarely surprise me with their reviews, especially when it comes to Science Fiction, but they certainly did in the case of Sunshine (http://film.guardian.co.uk/Film_Page/0,,2029236,00.html). A case of misplaced British pride?

Recently, at work, I mentioned that I felt that we humans are living at the most exciting time of our history in terms of changes, opportunities and dangers. The reply was that surely there have been many other periods before when humanity faced major opportunities and challenges and managed to continue moving up the ladder of moral and technological progress.

I have since read Brian Alexander’s Rapture, and I am now convinced that, indeed, Humanity has never been confronted with such possibilities, and in the process, with such risks and perils. We, the people of this Earth, are about to redefine the meaning of human nature (if such a meaning ever truly existed in the first place). We are about to take control of our own evolution.

Visions of Utopia have been around at least since the days of Plato’s Republic, gaining momentum in 1516 and 1627 with the publications of Thomas More’s Utopia and Francis Bacon’s The New Atlantis, and finding a new energy throughout the end of the 19th century and the early stages of the 20th, at a time when the promises of the industrial revolution filled people’s heads with dreams and a hunger for the possibilities of the future.

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With Children of Men, Alfonso Cuaron has reinvigorated the dystopic genre with a much-needed dose of seriousness and realism. Films such as 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Alphaville, and A Clockwork Orange inevitably come to mind, not only in their willingness to study the possible future consequences of current trends, but also in the gravity and sincerity with which they do so.

Children of Men potentially deserves to join this pantheon of dystopian classics. Brilliantly directed by the man who saved the Harry Potter franchise from a slow boring death, beautifully shot (side note: what is it with Mexican directors and beautiful cinematography? I have recently reviewed Babel, Pan’s Labyrinth and now Children of Men, and I find myself saying ‘beautiful cinematography’ in all 3 cases) by Emmanuel Lubezki, the DOP for Terrence Malick’s New World and for his upcoming film, Tree of Life, Children of Men explores with great care and details a near future where humanity has become sterile.

Deprived of the ability to conceive and, therefore, deprived of hope, people have slowly lost their grasp on existence. Chaos reigns across the world, with the exception of England where a dictatorial elite barely manages to keep some kind of order throughout the country. The first birth in 17 years propels different factions against each other, all determined to decide the future of the child.

The future of Children of Men, which is loosely based on the 1992 novel by PD James, is as almost as bleak as the one described by Margaret Atwood in the Handmaid’s Tale. Both reveal a post-apocalyptic world that suffocates under the tyranny of an authoritarian regime. And both use procreation as the driving theme of the narrative. But Children of Men offers a glimmer of hope at the end whereas, if I remember correctly, the Handmaid’s Tale leaves open the possibility that the future will not improve, the type of ambiguity that Atwood seems to cherish.

There is an incredibly well choreographed ‘war’ scene in the film that would have made Stanley Kubrick proud. The camera just seems to float and move seamlessly from room to room, from building to building, with bullets flying left and right, making the experience as, and if not more, intense and immersive than anything I have seen before.
Children of Men is perfect on many levels, and it is a pleasure to see a work of science fiction, or, as Margaret Atwood would call it, a work of speculative fiction, be treated with such dignity and importance.

This Korean flick should serve as a case study on the terrible use of music in film. In fact, might as well turn it into a case study on the terrible use of everything in film. What starts as an intriguing rip off of Blade Runner, AI and Minority Report dissolves into a lamentable and pitiful semblance of a film with enough soapy music to make you reach for your DVD incinerator.

Margaret Atwood calls her ‘futuristic’ work ‘speculative fiction’, drawing a distinction between what she sees as a possible soon-to-be here future and the more distant extrapolations of traditional Science-Fiction. And Oryx and Crake, like The Handmaid’s Tale before, does indeed feel uncomfortably close, and real.

Influenced by the author’s own fears about the state of our planet and of our society, the book presents a dystopic view of what our world could be like 20, 30 or 40 years from now. The upper-class, represented mostly in the book by individuals and families working for large scientific corporations, live in protected and luxurious compounds that shelter them from external contact with the rest of society. This ‘rest’ lives in what is perceived by the elite as a dangerous and chaotic no-man’s land, whose boundaries and exact geography remain fairly vague. Global warming related catastrophes have become so common that the ‘compounders’ have learned to adapt by changing some of their traditions and habits, such as moving the students’ graduation date to February to avoid the scorching heat of June. One of these students is Crake and he has a plan for humanity. He wants to rid human beings of their shortcomings, which he believes are responsible for the problems plaguing the world.
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Animation is the ideal tool for Science Fiction cinema since it can help create and display on the screen what does not yet exist. One of the obstacles that Science Fiction cinema has always faced is the tension between the need to stretch reality and the need to keep it believable and real in a way that most audiences can still relate to it. This is the unfortunate reason why most Sci-Fi films tend to be filled with inconsistencies and a disparity between what the story wants to show us and what it actually does show us.
Animation can relieve this tension by creating believable and abstract worlds. It can free the imagination, which is the point of Science Fiction.

Yet, this free rein of the visual creativity often comes at a price. The traditional aspects of filmmaking such as dialogue, storyline, and, when applicable, acting, have usually suffered greatly in animation films. But today, the line between animation and traditional cinema is becoming more and more blurry. With Toy Story in 1995, Pixar were the first to reach out to such a large audience with an animated film that had strong characters and a solid storyline. Finding Nemo and The Incredibles and the films of Hayao Miyazake were worthy additions and helped continue to increase the popularity of the genre.
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You love him or you hate him. The likelihood that someone could have feelings towards Michel Houellebecq that lie somewhere between these two extremes seems very low. And this inner range would probably be characterized more by uncertainty and puzzlement than by direct variations in the levels of love or hate.

His detractors and critics condemn his constant and relentless misanthropy, his self-indulgent style, his inability to create likeable, new and interesting characters that would demark themselves from the suffocating imprint of their creator, his bigotry, his penchant for pornographic descriptions…the list goes on. His admirers claim that French literature hasn’t had a voice this fresh, this honest and this ingenious since Sartre or Camus.

Houellebecq hits you hard, and in many different places. He shocks us, amuses us, disgusts us, astounds us, sometimes all in one sentence. He drills and wounds and suddenly applies a balm to the wound, only to re-open it shortly after. His knowledge and understanding of modern society and pop culture can only leave most writers his age, and younger, contemplative. His appreciation and masterly control of technological issues is bound to impress most readers, as is his sharp and witty prose.

But his conclusions and observations of the world are visceral, the reflections of a troubled man who cannot cope with the passing of time and the deterioration of modern society. Houellebecq goes after who we are and his style forces us to confront our own understanding of the world. If that understanding is a different one than that of Houellebecq, we are bound to find his perverse and pitiful. He shocks and puts the reader into an extreme situation and forces a reaction and a realization that her views are either similar or not at all. But the beauty of Houellebecq’s work lies in its ability to touch us all, to awaken emotions, positive and negative, and to take a critical look at what it means to be human.

The Possibility of an Island lacks the snap and energy of the Particules Elementaires, and seems less fresh and relevant. Instead, Houellebecq takes us further into his own soul, further into the depths of his distaste towards humanity and modern culture. Nothing escapes his judgment and critic. There is simply no room for happiness in a Darwinian world where sexuality and the need to pass on genes dominate. Humanity is cruel, as is nature. Humans are no different than animals, and probably worse. Yet, Houellebecq is not all hatred and disgust. The Possibility of an Island reveals an occasional glimpse of sadness, an underlying nostalgia for what could have been, had we not been the humans we are. It is this softness burried deep inside Houellebecq, his longing and his quest for an invisible love, this balm he applies to our wounds, which often entices the reader to go further with him on his journey of doom.

As in Buddhism, Houellebecq’s vision of the world begins with the belief that life is suffering. If in the Particules Elementaires we were given a glimpse of hope through the creation of a new race of human beings, this hope is shattered in The Possibility of an Island. The superior race, even though at an intermediate stage of development, has lost all semblances of emotions. They evolve in a state akin to a void, empty of desire, attachment, sorrow and happiness. Is this the price humanity must pay? Is this the way out of the human condition? Most readers would find this an absurd solution and Houellebecq knows it, demonstrating that, sadly, for the author, the possibility of an island is more remote than ever.

This silly French movie produced by Luc Besson showcases the athletic skills of David Belle, the inventor of Parcour, the urban sport that consists of running, jumping and climbing pretty much anything that comes your way. The movie also takes a shot at French politics and politicians, especially right-wing politicians who favour a radical ‘clean up’ of the Banlieues, rather than a more social and integrationist approach. But, in the end, everyone is guilty in this farcical, nonsensical debacle, and, naturally, no intelligent solution is offered, aside from kicking the butt of the person next to you until they admit that violence is not the answer….

For a Science Fiction writer, it sometimes feels that Philip K. Dick didn’t seem that concerned with the future. A reader of A Scanner Darkly (or a viewer of the recent Linklater film adaptation) might easily question how the term Science Fiction was even applied to this work in the first place.

Like Valis, a book which I found much more disturbing, A Scanner Darkly deals with the present (or close enough to the present), and it explores, in a rigorous and carefully laid-out fashion, one of Dick’s favourite themes, the questioning of reality. Set in Orange County, California, an undercover narcotic agent gradually and painfully looses his grasp on reality, as he becomes the victim of the drug he must use regularly to keep his cover. The change is very progressive and Dick carefully details this path to madness.

Yet, A Scanner lacks the excessiveness of Valis, the accessibility and intriguing speculation of The Man in the High Castle, the pace and futurist appeal of The Minority Report or the even the moodiness and intellectualism of Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep?. A Scanner is a tale about the now, about not so interesting individuals who have few interests and few connections to the world. But its story still feels very real, perhaps too real for a piece that questions reality. I am sure this is also its appeal for a lot of readers who will find its details and believability more interesting and sincere than Dick’s more speculative work.

The problem with V for Vendetta is that it uses too many ‘fear-of-the-near-future’ cliches and stereotypes to tell its story. There is nothing in its vision of the future that hasn’t been shown on screen before, and better. Still, the film has an overall good pace, some fine British actors, great production design, a few electric action/music moments which the Wachowski Brothers are so good at. And, finally, the film has that Voice. Who wants to see behind the mask when we have that Voice? I still sometimes shout ‘Mr Anderson!’ randomly, just to see if i can imitate that Voice…i could listen to Hugo Weaving all day…

May the Lord of all good cinematic things protect us from Michael Bay. This man is a menace to society. And what were McGregor and Johansson thinking? And while it is clear that there is a growing industry for product placements in films, does it have to be so in-your-face? This film is a disgrace and so are its director and producers.

Film architecture and design has existed almost as long as cinema itself. In 1976, Leon Barsacq argued in Caligari’s Cabinet And Other Grand Illusions that the fantasist sets developed by Georges Melies at the beginning of the 20th century were a considerable improvement over anything that had been done previously in that they created a deeper reality and gave the image a more substantial meaning. He further added that cinema escaped its primitive phase once it moved away from simple backdrops to three-dimensional sets, thereby creating an architectural space within cinema[1]. Post World War I, the German Expressionists fully explored this new architectural space through the creation of sets that attempted to reflect the inner emotions of the characters in the films. And David O. Selznik’s use of the term ‘production design’ in reference to the work of the American director and set designer William Cameron Menzies on Gone with the Wind (1939), finally helped film design and architecture gain the official recognition and visibility that has since become an integral part of the cinematic experience and of the output of most film industries.

Following fairly closely the emergence of production values in the history of cinema has been the rise and acceptance of science fiction cinema. It is indisputable that the two are interconnected and that a process exists where both feed off from one another. Cinema learns from architecture and architecture learns from cinema. As far back as 1926, many architects were said to have been impressed and influenced by Metropolis (1926). Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 (1968) also apparently became a source of inspiration for the world of architecture, with the director himself having sourced a lot of his inspiration from several existing architectural and design trends and concepts. Today, terms like ‘science fiction architecture’, ‘high-tech architecture’ or ‘cyber architecture’ are commonly used to refer to a new and ‘modern’ style of architecture that draws heavily on science fiction and new technologies. For many architects, ‘science fiction is an imaginative form of design’[2], making its visualizations worth studying.

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High Treason, Gaumont-British’s first sound film (a silent version was also made to accommodate theatres still not equipped to handle sound) and directed by Maurice Elvey, was to be Britain’s answer to Metropolis, Fritz Lang’s science fiction masterpiece from 1926. Based on a play by Noel Pemberton-Billing, it depicts a not so distant future (1950) where the two main powers are the Federated States of Europe, which include Britain, and the Atlantic States.

This rift between what is in fact Europe and the USA is one of several ideas that seem quite pertinent today in a film that has often been accused of containing too much naïve pacifist propaganda. For High Treason is indeed very much a film about pacifism, drawing on the fears and anxieties that continued to haunt the British public since the end of World War I. As Dr Seymour, the lead character and head of the Peace League, replies when told that people are now too sensible for war, “that’s what they said in 1914!”. Yet, the bombing of the channel tunnel as part of an overall plan by the agitators to use terror to influence the two governments and the comment by the President of the Atlantic States that “We must strike the first blow”, demonstrate that perhaps High Treason may not have been as naïve as was often thought.

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