It would be naive to assume that Avatar only works because of the technology. There is little doubt that, in this case, the 3D aspect enhances the filmic experience. However, as Michael Bay and George Lucas, and countless others, remind us too often, placing most of the focus of a film on CGI and visual effects while neglecting everything else, can have disastrous consequences.
James Cameron, while not king of the world, is probably one of Hollywood’s princes of perfection. His reputation as a very hard man to please make him a respected, yet also apparently often disliked director who is not afraid to ask for expensive sets to be completely redone in a very short amount of time and for staff members to be dismissed right away if they fail to comply. It is somewhat unfortunate that these types, whether in Hollywood or not, are often rewarded for being unpleasant but the positive side is that it is exactly what makes them difficult that also allows them to create interesting works.

Avatar provides a fairly average story with extremely cliche characters. The acting is nothing special, the soundtrack is over the top, even a bit annoying, and some of the dialogues are ‘cheesy’. So what works? As mentioned earlier, despite the fact that the CGI and visual effects are of the highest caliber, this in itself is usually not enough to carry a film. Cameron has succeeded in creating an overall experience that is so enthralling that the mediocre aspect of some of its parts is forgiven. A bit like Star Wars in 1977, a film which after all was fairly amateurish at times, Avatar immerses us in a very believable world of fantasy, legends and myths. The acting may not make much sense but the details of the world do. It is this meticulously crafted visual and non-visual environment that succeeds in transporting us to a very interesting place for 160 minutes or so.

While i like intelligent, cerebral and artsy cinema, i also love when cinema just entertains and when it does it well. Avatar has sucked all that it could from the little book of entertaining cinema and offers perhaps the best visual effects ever created on film. But more importantly, it works thanks to the clarity of an artistic vision and thanks to the perfectionism of James Cameron.

Burning Man changed my life. I can’t really pinpoint exactly how it did that, but I know that the first time I went there in 1999, something happened and I was able to reach into a part of me which I either never knew was there or knew was there but was never able to reach. I believe this is not an uncommon outcome, and that most people who attend the yearly festival in the Nevada desert experience something that touches them profoundly.
I managed to go two more times, in 2001 and 2002, but it never really felt the same. The magic and awe were still present, but some of the novelty and beauty had started to wane.

There are many readings of this cyber post-modern hippie festival that started on the beaches of San Francisco in the late 1980’s. Some see it as a release from society, some as a purging of their inner demons, some as a Disneyland of experimentation, others as a place of artistic freedom and beauty, or as a convergence of consciousness, and finally, for some, it’s just the perfect place to get high and to get laid, while mixing it up with desert survival camping. In a word, this is an event that probably could only take place in the US.

The beauty of Burning Man lies in this diversity of possibilities. There is something there for everyone. It is like a beautiful tree covered with many different types of fruits, all easily accessible and all ripe for the picking. One only needs to choose what suits one’s taste the best.
But one of the most magical aspects of the festival, at least until about 10 years ago, and even then, the old timers were already talking about how the festival was slowly losing its identity to the ‘weekend tourists’, is how it reminds one of the pressures and constraints of our society by removing them. Unlike more traditional festivals, Burning Man allows one to contemplate an alternative society, one where people exist to be kind to each other (on the most part) and to share a common ideal and consciousness. Moreover, this is a society that does not judge and does not, directly or indirectly, tell its citizens how to behave, how to dress, or how to exist. In return, the people choose willingly to be free and to act accordingly but to never harm others in the process.

One of the most hideous obstacles to our freedom in today’s society is the absurdity of consensual crimes, those actions that do not impact anyone but the person engaging in this action, but yet are deemed criminal by society. It is a wonderful and exhilarating experience to be free from the judgement of institutions and that of other people. I believe that one does not truly know what the impact is of such liberation on one’s psyche, personality and behaviour until one experiences it. And I believe that most people, if they allow such a freedom to wash over them, will surprise themselves and realize, if only a little bit, that our minds and bodies have become corrupted by the demands of our modern world. Burning Man allows for a temporary respite from the Matrix in which we live, a vacation for the senses and for the mind and a new way of looking at the world. Who doesn’t need this once in a while?

The Day the Earth Stood Still is a pathetic film. As I much as I love Hollywood for its mystic, history, glamour and for the fact that it continues year after year to enable the creation of marvellous films, I also sometimes hate it for being able to not only green light such trash but also for purposefully creating in the first place such a non-sensical and emotionally deficient waste, tailored to please the common denominator, thus totally disregarding in the process good acting, scene plausibility, intelligent dialogues and well developed characters. I won’t even get into the dishonour a bad remake does to the original film upon which it is based, in this case, one of the best Science Fiction films of all time.

Stiff Keanu Reeves as the stoic Alien already tells us that we are embarking on a risky adventure. Some might see a certain logic in casting someone who does not know how to act (although once in a while Reeves is capable of raising his acting to the level of ‘enjoyable enough’ as in The Gift (2000)) for the part of an alien who supposedly does not initially understand emotions, but I would rather classify this as bad and naïve casting. Or more likely as marketing-based casting. After all, Brad Pitt, who has since shown that he is capable of good acting in such films as Kalifornia (1993), Fight Club (1999), Snatch (2000), 12 Monkeys (1995), The Assassination of Jesse James (2007) and Burn after Reading (2008), proved through his horrid performances in Interview with a Vampire (1994) and Meet Joe Black (1998) that playing blasé and stoic characters (as well as an Austrian character in Seven Years in Tibet (1997)) is not the stuff of average actors.

With the addition of the money-driven and inappropriate casting of Keanu Reeves, The Day the Earth Stood Still also boasts an impressive list of clichés, issued straight out the bad blockbuster manual: the racially mixed infuriating child who will do the most maddening things at the most inopportune moments but who, as even the average viewer will have guessed from the start, will finally overcome his emotional issues and become only slightly less annoying; the bright and single mother who has problems raising that irritating little…mentioned earlier and who seems to know all the right people since she will become the main point of contact for the alien (someone in this whole disaster of a production still had enough good sense to ensure that she does not end up falling in love with the alien); the know-it-all and closed minded politicians who will of course make all the wrong decisions; the beyond repair and impotent military establishment which, as usual, will find bigger and bigger rockets to throw at the problem; the good, tolerant and just scientists who, if it weren’t for the politicians and military, could make the world a much better place; and last but not least, the alien who is so intelligent that, after some small, uninteresting and morally infantile chats with a couple of people, discovers the meaning of emotions and realizes that humans are not such a bad lot after all. My son is 19 months old and has an EQ far superior to the level of this film.

In comparison to the relevance of this film to contemporary environmental issues (its superficial message that we are killing our earth and its ending that seems to lightly suggest – and this was not made very clear - that stopping all technology is the answer to these issues, are an affront to the problems we truly face), Emmerich’s The Day after Tomorrow (2004) seems like a scientific treatise, which of course does not say a whole lot about Hollywood’s ability to take these issues seriously.

I am a lover of great cinema but also of great cinematic trash. This, on the other hand, is bad trash and as such deserves every single bit of negative press it has so far received. In the meantime, I shall pull out the 1951 version of The Day the Earth Stood Still from my DVD shelf for a little trip down nostalgia lane…

Alan Weisman is a poet. The World Without Us is no mere environmental investigation into the destructive power human beings hold over nature and their environment. It is a provocative thought experiment about the fate of our planet if humans completely disappeared tomorrow and it is an ode to the strength and resilience with which nature could fight back, if given that chance.

For as long as we have been on this earth, we Humans have, through our actions, tilted the balance of power in our favour. Influencing the environment around us, altering it to suit our needs is something that we have been doing for millions of years. But it is only recently, with the advent of industrialization and with the ever-increasing growth of technology experienced in the last few decades, that we have begun to fully understand the implications of what it really means to exercise such a control over Nature.

Weisman, using words and prose more reminiscent of classic literature than of journalism, picks his examples carefully and makes his points adroitly, eloquently and beautifully. He never seems to judge, yet leaves us no choice but to feel the urge to do so, and to punish human stupidity for the aberrations that it is capable of. Example after example, we are taken on a journey across the consequences of Man’s never ending thirst for progress at the expense of the world around him.

What would become of our cities? Would they slowly become the kingdom of animals, reserves for new or for endangered species that we were once in the process of exterminating? And what would happen for example to the hundreds of thousands of gallons of water under New York city which every day are barely being held back by some giant machinery that threatens to fail at any moment?

Even if we stopped producing CO2 tomorrow, would it ever disappear from our air, soils and oceans? And if it did, how long would it take and what changes would continue to occur during this period? And what about trapping this CO2 underground, a proposal being made these days to reduce global warming? What would happen to it after thousands of years?

If humans disappeared suddenly, would human evolution start again in a similar fashion as before or have we made too many changes to our ecosystem to sustain such a creation again? Would animals cross back the continents and return to their ancestral habitats (and behaviours), the ones they had occupied before man intervened and started regulating their environment?

What about the myriad of chemicals and materials – PCB, PBD, DDT, EDC, among many others - used in even our smallest and more innocuous creations? Would they all slowly be absorbed back into nature, eaten away by plastic-hungry bacteria, or would they linger forever, a testament to Man’s folly and ingenuity? What fate would await the hundreds of millions of tons of various plastics that are already littering our lands, beaches and oceans, approximately three million of which already form the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a Texas-size area in the Pacific Ocean that is totally covered with plastic bags, Q-tips, sandwich wraps and other unfortunately too-disposable human inventions?

These are some of the questions that Weisman addresses in this wonderful book, a must read for anyone interested in the health of our planet. As with all of my posts on this subject, I will add my disclaimer that I do not interpret this as a call to renounce technology. The message to save and heal our planet is clear and it must be heard. But humans will not disappear tomorrow and they will not renounce, nor should they, their quest for progress. Awareness and action must be taken to ensure that this progress is fully democratic, equitable, fair, clean and responsible. This, I believe, is the right path, rather than to hope for progress to stop or to wish for a return to the past.

Watching a film by Werner Herzog is never an easy task. It is the antithesis of the traditional Hollywood entertainment-driven movie. Herzog’s films make you work and think, they force you to participate by investing your strength, your intelligence and your entire emotional being into the experience. Through his subject matters, his startling use of imagery and his haunting scores, Herzog demands constant involvement from his audience. An unfortunately too-rare form of cinema, his films continue to raise pertinent questions about some of the most interesting issues today.

Lessons of Darkness captures the devastation of Kuwait in the aftermath of the first Gulf War. More specifically, it is a portray of a wounded earth that is left shedding tears of fire due to the greed and savagery of Man. Not content to decimate and to ruin, Man also turns his bestiality towards other men and engages in horrible crimes which for any reasonably sane person are impossible to comprehend.

As i watched Herzog turning ugliness into beauty with his camera, music and editing, i could not help but weep at a world gone terribly wrong. 14 years before Edward Burtynsky made his Manufactured Landscapes (2006), Herzog used stunning visualization to show only one of the myriad of ways in which Man is impacting this Earth and is redefining the landscape and the entire ecosystem to his liking. Unfortunately for all of us, this redesigning comes without a plan and is driven by selfish motives rather than by a desire to develop a system where Man’s constant desire for progress can co-exist harmoniously with Nature.

While a Technogaianist myself, and thus a believer in technology as a means to achieve this harmony, Lessons of Darkness made me long at times for some of the scenarios that Alan Weisman so eloquently depicted in his seminal book The World Without Us (2007). It is comforting to know that Nature would eventually reclaim what is rightfully hers. But wishing it all away won’t make it go away and we must move forward and attempt to reconcile our innate propensity for greed and egoism with the need for ecological health and stability.

With The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan has become the evangelist for the ‘beyond organic’ movement. Although not preachy or pedagogic, this book is now a bible for people seeking to improve their health through the improvement of the health of our soils, animals, plants and of the planet as a whole. The ‘Beyond Organic’ movement not only questions industrial food productions systems, it also takes a hard look at what has become of the organic movement. And it is clear after reading Pollan’s brilliant, incredibly well-researched and so eloquently written book, that the essence of what made organic organic in the 70s has pretty much fully disappeared in today’s society. Instead, organic has become a marketing device, a method ignorant of its own carbon footprint that has succeeded (at least in the US) in applying many traditional industrial production techniques to a variety of new foods, under a new name, ideology and, of course, under a new price range. While still a better alternative than its traditional industrial counterpart (and Pollan has enough stories to tell about the rise and deceit of the industrial food production system to make one never want to eat industrial food again), organic today has little left of the ideals that once brought farmers and consumers together in an effort to return to a healthier and simpler way of obtaining and eating food.

However, this does not necessarily imply that a dismissal of all things organic is in order. There continues to be clear benefits to eating organic and to reject most so-called foods that are issued from the big industrial food machine: anything that comes in a shape or form that clearly can not be found in nature as well as anything that comes in a container or package as this is an indication of a highly processed food. Eating organic ensures with a relatively high degree of certainty that no chemical fertilizer and pesticides were used and that no hormones were injected into the meat you buy. Finally, it means probably more vitamins and minerals than the average non-organic food. But even more importantly than all of this, buying organic also means a commitment to a lifestyle and to a way of approaching the world that is badly needed today. And if organic is not the final destination, at least it is a step in the right direction.

This destination is the beyond organic movement with its slow food, permacultures, sustainable agriculture, farmers’s markets, and community supported agriculture. It is a return to the eating of whole foods and to a renewed kinship with our planet. Pollan demonstrates clearly the link that exists between the various elements of a food chain, from the soils from which we grow our food to the insects that play a role in the growth (or not) of a plant which will be eaten by an animal which we will in turn eat (for those who still believe in the eating of animals). Humans are active at every level of this food chain, and whatever decisions we decide to make can have a negative or positive impact on this chain, and thus, on our own health. It is a symbiotic loop that is reminiscent of James Lovelock’s Gaia theory, showing once again that human beings can not take the liberty of assuming that they are independent of the world they inhabit. Everything we do, the many ways we impact our planet and our ecological systems, the decisions we make regarding the plants and animals that surround us, all impact us and our health (mental and physical) directly.

While Pollan has become a bit of an activist, speaking against Monsanto and genetically modified foods, The Omnivore’s Dilemma set out initially to simply show a history of food and of our relationship to it. By placing the rise of industrial production firmly into the greater context of our evolution and of our historical relationship to food, Pollan is able to show how we have become deceived and brainwashed by the promises and cheap and instantaneous rewards of industrial food, a food that unfortunately has little left in common with the food that we human beings evolved to eat and assimilate.

As I have posted several times before, I believe in the benefits of technology in the long run. I believe that we will, at some point in the future, master enough knowledge to create artificial foods that taste good, that are beneficial to us and that are manufactured in a way which is at peace with the environment. However, we have not reached that stage. We are still living in a world in which corporations are pushing sugar and unhealthy processed foods down our throats, making false claims about the health benefits of their products, bribing government officials to get clearance for substances that are clearly toxic, abusing our environment in dangerous ways, using unimaginable cruelty towards the animals that are part of our food chain, and all in the name of profit. While the long term future of food lies clearly with the scientists and the nutritionists (hopefully without the pressure of corporations), the immediate and short term future on the other hand must imply a return to a more natural way of eating, one which is at peace with the planet and in harmony with the way evolution transformed us over millions of years.

The French have a love affair with Science Fiction.

Along with that of the US and of Japan, French comic books, known by the more credible name of BDs (Bande Dessinee) and which can be found in abundance across French stores, are a continuous source of inspiration and creativity for artists and Science Fiction lovers everywhere. Ridley Scott has claimed that much of his inspiration for Blade Runner (1982) came from the work of Moebius in the 1970s and the rest of the crew of Les Humanoides Associes and of Metal Hurlant, the influential comic book that would later become Heavy Metal in the US .

Yet, when it comes to literature, aside from the common and more or less accurate claim that Jules Verne invented Sci-Fi, France has rarely produced science fiction writers of quality. Perhaps an obsession with comic books (considered by some to be the 9th art of France) is a way to compensate for this lack since a genre such as science fiction could probably never gain enough credibility in the country that produced Voltaire, Hugo and Balzac and where the ‘integrity’ of the art of literature is defended with so much fervor and passion.

A similar lack is evident in the history of French cinema. With the exception of Melies, L’Herbier, Jeunet and Caro and the two attempts by Godard and Truffaut, France’s sci fi output when it comes to cinema has been less than meager. But France clearly loves science fiction as seen through the lens of the cinematic medium. Sci Fi flicks, the majority of which come from the US or Asia, are always prominently displayed on the shelves of French stores, reflecting their capacity for attracting a large number of buyers. Cinema sci-fi magazines such as Ecran Fantastique and Mad Movies have been holding their own next to Premiere and Cahiers du Cinema for many years now and, contrary to what many may think outside of France, French TV runs a fair amount of Hollywood trash, including sci-fi.

On the subject of trash, which is regrettably often interchangeable with sci-fi, Luc Besson, the most American French director of the 90s, released The Fifth Element in 1997. Despite being a silly hollow film with high production values, The Fifth Element, along with much of Besson’s other trash inspired productions, has had an impact on the French collective psyche. Or perhaps it simply exploited contemporary social trends and gave a certain part of France the release it needed from the shackles of its past. Unfortunately, while providing some of the younger French filmmakers with the ability to think beyond France and the possibility for reaching out to new influences and styles, this break in tradition in French film making, this popularization of a previously somewhat elitist medium, has so far not resulted in anything good at all. It is mainly with its ‘traditional’ films that France continues to impress.

Films such as Chrysalis (2007), Renaissance (2006), Immortel (2004), Dante 01 (2008) and Vidocq (2001) are beautiful to look at but are for the most part completely devoid of substance. Their comic book approach explores new visual opportunities but forgets basic film making principles such as strong acting, appropriate casting, realistic and intelligent dialogues, proper script and scene development and professional editing, all of which are essential to the process of making a film of quality (Dante 01 stands slightly above the rest in this regard). Banlieue 13 (2004) marries the athleticism of Parkour with the ever increasing popularity of martial arts in France, but fails on every other levels. Babylon AD, the film supposedly reviewed here. is a travesty of a movie, an overindulgent and amateurish farce that deserves to join the Olympe of the worst that Hollywood has ever produced. Directed by Matthieu Kassovitz, the French actor and director who somehow managed to direct the gripping and enthralling La Haine (1995), it touches on futuristic subjects such as artificial intelligence, cloning, human enhancement, reanimation, overpopulation and global warming, but it does so in a way that is unbelievably childish and ignorant. I can’t help but thinking about how Kubrick had done his research to prepare for his next film, Napoleon, by filling entire rooms with books, paraphernalia and by slowing indexing on paper cards every piece of information he had ever read or obtained about his subject matter. Kubrick might be an extreme case, but it seems to me that any filmmaker should at least do a minimum of research before tackling a subject.

Babylon AD is another failure for French Sci-Fi cinema, sadly following in the footsteps of the films mentioned above, but also of previous efforts by French directors working within the Hollywood establishment: Catwoman (2004 - Pitof), Hulk 2 (2008 - Letterier), Alien Resurection (1997 - Jeunet), Gothika (2003 - Kassovitz).

A sometimes poorly structured and organized documentary with a moderator whose voice would put you to sleep if the topic wasn’t so interesting, The Future of Food nonetheless provides an interesting look into the dangers of genetically modified foods and is a good companion piece to the better We Feed the World (2005).

As people across the globe slowly become accustomed to hearing about genetically modified corn, canola or soybeans and fail to fully understand how it impacts them, corporations such as Monsanto are busy patenting seeds (and thus life; a horrifying thought to ponder. Big pharma is now beginning to patent genes), developing and planting new genetically modified crops, unbeknownst to most, and suing farmers in an effort to pressure them to use these corporations’ seeds. These corporations are also consolidating the food supply, thereby reducing the diversity of our crops and produces and driving many farming communities out of business, both in the Western and Third Worlds. In a word, everything awful that you have ever heard about what motivates corporations is unfortunately also applicable to the world of agriculture and genetically modified foods.

But this is not new. Monsanto’s main pesticide and herbicide, which has been used widely for decades in numerous countries, is based on military technology from World War Two, particularly on nerve gas and on the famous Agent Orange. Has Monsanto ever bothered to try to really understand what this means in the long term for the people eating crops or eating the animals that eat the crops sprayed with this stuff? Probably not. As one Monsanto executive stated about genetically modified foods, their only responsibility is to sell their product and to make money, not to ensure their safety, which they regard as the responsibility of the government. Unfortunately for all of us, most of the individuals with the real power in the two branches of the government that are supposedly looking after our safety (Federal Drug Administration and Department of Agriculture) are ex-Monsanto employees or are directly affiliated with the corporate world, in a manner reminiscent of the Bush’s administration’s various ties to many corporations that benefited from the war in Iraq. We live at a time when compassion and empathy are badly needed, but these are clearly not a corporation’s forte.

Therefore, it is up to us to ensure the safety of our food by living an organic lifestyle, by informing ourselves and by putting pressure on these corporations to increase the safety of their products and to provide us with more transparency on their actions and on which foods contain GMOs. The most naïve thing people can do is to assume that their voice or actions do not count. In the same way that something as simple and easy as replacing the light bulbs in your house can make a difference and reduce your energy consumption, buying organic produces, supporting your local farmers and encouraging sustainable farming can have an impact on the system, as well as on your health.

As I have stated before, we live at what I consider to be the most important and interesting time in our history. Our mastery of science is increasingly enabling us to consider new horizons and to change our destiny in ways that would have seemed impossible not so long ago. I believe in technology and I believe that it can have a positive impact on society. As a futurist, I also believe in the inevitability of progress and that whatever we fear today, we will accept tomorrow. For this reason, I am not opposed to genetically modified foods in the long run, in the same way that I am not opposed to genetic engineering in general. Yet, I believe that we are at the early stages of these developments and that they are currently not safe. Consequently, it is out duty to ensure their safety by pressuring the system. A year ago, driving back from the G8 demonstrations in Northern Germany, a friend asked me why I resisted GMO’s if I loved technology. I answered that I fight it to ensure its safety as quickly as possible, before it does too much damage, rather than to try to ensure that it never happens. I also do it because corporations are out of control and are ruling too many aspects of our lives. Their power must be reduced and their greed controlled. It is our choice to decide if we want to try to make a difference.

http://www.thefutureoffood.com/

http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsanto

http://www.thecampaign.org/

http://www.monsantowatch.org/

http://www.ucsusa.org/

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.

I once submitted several questions to the online discussion platform for social and environmental change www.droppingknowledge.org (a platform which I helped build). One of these questions raised the issue of whether it makes sense to spend so much money on space exploration when so much needs to be done on earth. I asked the question because this theme is of interest to me, although I have never believed that reducing our investment in space programs would directly and positively affect problems such as poverty or pollution. It is not simply more money that we need to overcome these problems. It is commitment and sacrifices of another kind. Nonetheless, I have encountered many social thinkers and environmentalists who see no purpose in space exploration and regard it as a waste of resources and while I can see their point to a certain extent, I remain fully convinced in the beauty and mystery of space exploration. I also believe that man’s destiny lies in the stars and that it will not be long before some of us begin to leave the blue planet behind.

In the Shadow of the Moon is a outstanding documentary film on the Apollo Space Program (the Mercury Program is briefly mentioned, referencing The Right Stuff, the book by Tom Wolf, which was turned into an excellent film by Philip Kaufman in 1983), narrated by the small group of men who had the privilege, and courage, to be the first humans to step on an alien world. The film is remarkably well put together and adroitly combines the fascinating tales and emotional insights of the astronauts with some amazing footage from NASA. It all feels so real that one immediately forgets that the film is an assemblage of original footage taken 35 years ago by cameras in cockpits or attached to spacecrafts and lunar modules. This footage is so skilfully intertwined with the narrative that one could be forgiven for thinking that the film crew shot additional footage to serve the storyline. What can not be forgiven however, after watching this brilliant and intensely touching film, is to continue thinking that the moon landings were a creation of the US government and that they in fact never took place. I believe there is plenty of proof in In the Shadow of the Moon to dispel any such absurd notions.

But what stands out the most for me after watching this film is the spirituality that these men developed after experiencing not only the beauty of the cosmos but also the serenity and fragility of our planet as seen from space. Some of the shots of Earth taken by the astronauts during the various Apollo flights have become omnipresent in our media over the past 30 years and, more importantly, have become synonymous in certain circles with a visualization of our planet as the self-regulating homeostatic organism named Gaia. First proposed by Dr. James Lovelock (who incidentally started developing his theory while working for NASA) in the early 70s, but already hinted at by Vladimir Vernadsky in the 1920s in his seminal book The Biosphere, the Gaia theory has been embraced by most people who feel empathy towards our planet and who regard it as a connected and living organism that deserves our respect and attention. And while Gaianism has been around for a while, and has even regained some of its momentum in the past few years due to the increased number of environmental issues facing our planet, a new belief has emerged, one that merges a deep respect for the Earth and all of its living creatures with a conviction in the powers of technology to help us overcome these issues and to, in the process, achieve a deeper spirituality and a global consciousness. Drawing, among others, on the work of the French monk Teilhard de Chardin who believed that technology would help us reach The Omega Point which is a higher state of global consciousness, these believers in TechnoGaianism, and i am one of them, tend to also be transhumanists with a social agenda and a democratic slant (James Hughes’ Citizen Cyborg is a particularly good reference on this latter subject).

Perhaps we do need Space and to get closer to the stars to remind us not to forget our duties towards Earth. Where some people might detect an irony or even an incompatibility between space exploration and the preservation and love of our planet, I see an interconnectedness following its logical progress and taking the human race to its next step in evolution, clearly driven for the first time in history by Man itself and in agreement with a desire to see all living and non living creatures existing in perfect harmony with this or any other planet and thus, with the cosmos as a whole.

From a futurist perspective, the possibility that everything in the universe is connected by a quantum vacuum (or Akashic field, or any other name that might help define what remains an elusive theory), from the smallest particles to the largest cosmic phenomenon, is a fascinating idea to contemplate.
Many transhumanists, such as Raymond Kurzweil and Hans Moravec, believe in the concept of a future global consciousness, enabled through the merging of the human brain with technology, particularly artificial intelligence. Already today, many are pointing at the rise of social applications, the increasing use of mobile technology and at the speed at which the Internet is evolving, to draw comparisons with various aspects of the human brain. Could the Internet become conscious? It is indeed a possibility that is not to be discounted.
Likewise, it is very likely that, sooner than most people realize, human beings, through mind upload and the development of AI, will be able to achieve a pooled consciousness, which one can only hope will lead to a betterment of many ills that plague our world today.
Yet, this connectivity exists already today, as it has for as long as the universe has existed. Moreover, if we believe the System Theorist and Integral Theorist Ervin Laszlo, our universe, having benefited from the infinite learning of this connectivity and coherence, is itself only an enhancement of previous universes, thereby explaining the ultimate perfection that enables every aspect of our cosmic life to come together and function.
Laszlo further speculates that every atom in our body is connected to every atom in the universe, including naturally to those of our fellow biological entities. To support these claims of connectivity between human beings and the cosmos, Laszlo provides a plethora of examples and scientific tests that have been performed over the past 100 years. Regrettably, the troubling and fascinating results from these tests have been mostly ignored by the scientific community (and by the medical community as well, as explained by, for example, Deepak Chopra in his books on Quantum Healing) and by the public as a whole, who prefers instead to discount them and to classify them as alternative and mystical belief.

This loss of ‘focus’ keeps us as a species from reaching towards global consciousness and higher states of being, a realm which is today the exclusivity of a very few, usually those practicing meditation or those gifted with certain abilities such as healing, clairvoyance or even deep compassion and empathy. While technology can be the promise for a better future, there is no need to wait for the Singularity and beyond for the merging of our minds with that of machines to reach global consciousness. We can renew a process that was lost a long time ago by reaching out to the cosmos and by embracing the possibilities of the quantum vacuum that exists all around us and within us. Because we are the cosmos.

One would be hard-pressed these days to not notice the ever-increasing role that China is playing in all affairs of the world. The hunger of this industrial juggernaut for more consumption and production seems to be constantly rising, swallowing in the process so much energy and raw materials that an increasing number of people around the world are now asking about the human and environmental cost of this manufacturing escalation. Naturally, the Chinese are responding that these people should also question the same cost produced by their own countries over the past 100 years, that China has a right to augment its productivity and the ‘well-being’ of its people and that the country is doing more than any others to combat the negative environmental effects of its alarmingly fast entry into the world of mass consumption and production.
Still, the statistics are alarming: 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are in China, coal production to double until 2020, 400 new cities planned over the next 20 years (including 233 Eco-cities, if the Dongtan model proves successful), around 14,000 people dying per year in industrial accidents (Corpwatch), about 60 percent (700 million people) of the population are poor peasants, the second largest producer of CO2 after the US, which it will overtake next year, the list goes on…
How can such an incredibly growth take place without triggering a chain reaction of negative consequences for many of the Chinese people, for the planet and thus, for all of us?

Edward Burtynsky’s fascination with images of nature transformed by man has led him to create stunning photography of mines, quarries, dams, and other human interventions in locations where only nature existed before…In Manufactured Landscapes, he takes his camera to China and attempts to create an ‘objective’ account of its industrialization. He refrains from bombarding us with information about the country in general and about what we see on screen. Instead, he lets his images, moving and still, do the talking, occasionally punctuated by a simple and short voice-over whose economy serves to trigger a thought process rather than to fill our heads with data.
The result is fascinating, beautiful to watch at times, and mind-boggling at other times when the visuals force us to confront the absurdity of a worldwide system that forces most people to react in a similar fashion in similar circumstances: more is better, even if it means exhausting all of our resources in the process. In his very informative book ‘Collapse’, Jared Diamond shows how societies keep on making the same mistake and will drain their resources until it is too late. In most cases, the intention is not to do so. It is simply usually too difficult to assess the gravity of the situation until it is too late, and, often, as is the case with China today, other demands are placed on the society that seem to take priority over anything else.

One of the more powerful segments in the film is about the 3 Gorges Dam. Burtynski’s photographs show a ruined and nightmarish landscape around the dam, where dozens of cities have had to be relocated to give way to the new river. Most of the hundreds of thousands of people affected by this dramatic redefining of the landscape were poor to begin with, and then were asked to dismantle their houses, brick by brick, and transport them miles away where they could be rebuilt. The valley now looks like it has been bombed, a frightening and eerie scenery that could have served as the set of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. But the irony of it all is that, only a few days ago, the news came out, after much suspicion on the part of environmentalists that it would, that the valley has become an ecological disaster (landslides, pollution and water contamination….) and that all houses, which the people have rebuilt brick by brick, must now be moved again, even further away from the river. The cost of the dam and of the various relocations of the inhabitants of the valley must now be approaching 30 billion dollars.

Manufactured Landscapes, although using China as a canvas, is a reflection on the future of the planet, on the course of action we humans decide to take, and whether we are strong enough to do what is necessary to alter the path of destruction that seems to be our preferred choice so far.

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.

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.

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.

Read more »

It was with great interest that I started watching this channel 4 documentary, a response to Gore’s Inconvenient Truth and, really, a response to what the producers and director (a certain Martin Durkin, who, 10 years ago was chastised by the Independent Television Commission for misleading some of the people he interviewed in his anti-environmentalist documentaries, something he apparently did again in this case with Carl Wunsch, who claims to have been deceived) of this anti-propaganda piece of propaganda see as an increasingly dangerous global warming bio-fool movement.

Now, I happen to be one of these bio-fools, but with what I hope is an open mind. So if I hear that some people are saying that global warming is a hoax, I am interested in finding out why they are saying it.
The GGWS starts strongly enough, with some interesting, albeit not new, evidence proving that severe temperature fluctuations have been with us as long as there has been an earth. The documentary then goes on to show that CO2 emissions play only a minimal role in raising temperatures, and that, in fact, temperatures affect CO2 emissions rather than the other way around. Finally, the point is made that solar flares are the source of the current rise in temperatures and that man-made CO2 emissions have, therefore, pretty much nothing to do with the global warming of the earth.

What is the agenda behind this documentary? There is a belief in some circles that global warming and what it embodies is a scam, an effort by many people in this world to deceive the rest of the world, a desire by corporations and organizations to profit from the hype, and an attempt by some to slow down the growth of developing countries. And if we are to believe a certain Lyndon LaRouche and his cohorts of anti-environmentalists, man-made global warming is a hoax created to limit human potential, to control population growth and to curb the rise of technology. The more one looks into this issue, and the more one realizes that the idea of man-made global warming has a lot of enemies, and not only in the more obvious circles of right wing capitalistic ideology. Man-made global warming is now regarded as both a profit-driven conspiracy and, at the same time, as the delusional ramblings of bio-fools who would rather save the planet than humanity.

Let us assume for a moment that all of the above points (I personally agree with the sad fact that global warming has become a profitable path for many, regardless of their true motivation) have various degrees of truth in them. Let us assume that the earth is going through a natural warming period, part of a cycle that started 4.3 billions years ago. Does this justify taking all responsibility away from what we are doing to the planet? Should Man be therefore fully exempt of accountability in regards to his action towards the environment? This is the message of this documentary. And this is a very dangerous message. Fearing for the future of the planet does not make one a Luddite, a preferred term of the anti-environmentalists. The impact of Man on his environment has never been so pronounced and profound. Even if solar flares are indeed responsible, so far, for most of the warming on earth, it does not automatically imply that we must ignore the role played by man, a role which we are only starting to understand. And the precautionary principle has nothing to do with this. There is evidence of direct harm to the planet, whether via CO2 emissions or deforestation or animal extinction. The director and producers of this documentary seem to want to encourage viewers, by putting all emphasis on the earth’s cyclical temperature changes, to believe that it is acceptable to ignore these facts.

Now, let us assume that man-made global warming is indeed true. If we believe this documentary, we can continue to do as we please, to pollute, to suck from the planet its resources and riches, to put man first and nature second. Again, assuming that we are responsible for what is happening to the planet right now, what kind of a future would you rather live in? Isn’t it worth being careful now? Some speak of the feeling of collective guilt that is being pressed upon the citizens of this world. What of it? Can’t the Western world deal with that guilt? Can’t the French, Germans, Americans, British and others learn to drive less, to switch light bulbs, to recycle, and, really, to be aware? That is not guilt. These are good manners for the 21st century. And when it comes to developing countries, we must clearly not hinder their growth by forcing upon them cost prohibitive measures, but rather we must use our own expertise, knowledge and financial resources to help guide them towards a growth that balances environmental concerns with in some cases, more traditional methods. This film would have you believe that the same type of pressure that is put on the Western world is applied to developing countries, but as pointed out by www.realclimate.org, the Kyoto protocol does not apply to developing countries (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled/)

I do not partake in the idea that being an environmentalist means being anti-technology or being in favour of limiting human growth and potential. It is about finding a way to balance these forces so that everyone can benefit, on a healthy planet, from a healthy future where technology can play its part.

This article was originally published for www.droppingknowledge.org

A 12 hours bus ride north-east of La Paz, Bolivia, on the banks of the Espíritu Santo River, where the Amazonian rainforest begins, lies Inti Wara Yasi, Bolivia’s largest animal sanctuary. Inti Wara Yasi, which means Sun, Star, Moon in Quechua, Aymara, and Guarani, the three indigenous Bolivian languages, was founded in 1992 by Juan Carlos Antezana, and was originally a place where poor and orphaned children from the city would come learn skills that allow them to earn a little money and eventually escape the slums. But more importantly, Juan Carlos provided his ‘children’ with a home, with a sense of belonging, and with hope.

Over the years, as nature started to play a stronger role in his youth program, Juan Carlos began to see the wonderful possibilities in bringing troubled kids and animals together. In 1996, Inti Wara Yasi became a sanctuary for injured, abandoned or abused animals – and a place where children play important roles in the rehabilitation and return of these animals into the wild. During these rehabilitations, strong relationships often develop between the kids and the animals based on trust, respect and empathy.

Alarmed by the increasing illegal trade of animals in Bolivia and by what he sees as the inability of his government to stop deforestation, slash-and-burn agriculture and loss of habitat for various animal species, Juan Carlos has turned Inti Wara Yasi into a leading youth organization that promotes environmental and animal awareness across Bolivia. Today, the sanctuary holds more than 1000 animals, ranging from Capuchin Monkeys and Parrots to Pumas and Ocelots.

Named one of Jane Goodall’s heroes (http://animal.discovery.com/fansites/janegoodall/heroes/heroes.html) and an Ashoka Fellow (www.ashoka.org), Juan Carlos and his team now regularly visit the slums and markets of La Paz and of other cities across Bolivia, hoping to lure youngsters away from a life of poverty and drugs, and rescuing animals that are abandoned and illegally sold. His environmental ‘brigades’ of Bolivian youths and volunteers from all over the globe, frequently organize marches and demonstrations across Bolivia and in neighboring countries. Juan Carlos hopes that one day he will be able to reach out to 70% of Bolivian youth, and that through their efforts, cruelty towards animals and the environment in Bolivia will stop.

www.intiwarayassi.org

Some Stats:

The Bolivian Amazon Rainforest is known for its vast biodiversity with over 2000 species of plants, more than 80 species of mammals and around 650 types of birds.
In Bolivia, 140,000 hectares of forest are destroyed each year by timber companies and by slash-and-burn agriculture
The global wildlife market is worth over $20 billion annually.
Baby capuchin monkeys—crying and weak– tied to logs waiting to be transported out of northern Bolivia. In Bolivia, Baby capuchin monkeys sell for about $3.50 each. In the United States, they are sold as pets for $3,000.
Around 70% of Bolivian children live in poverty.
About 2,000 fifteen-to twenty-year-olds from five of Bolivia’s nine regions have joined the Juan Carlos’ movement.

Sources: Ashoka, No Compromise, Inti Wara Yasi, Quest Overseas, Havoscope, UNICEF, Animal Planet

What kind of invention is the newspaper today? I suppose that looking back, there was a time when newspapers made complete sense. Speaking of making sense actually probably even misses the point. Newspapers had a revolutionary impact on society the way the Internet does today. Before the invention of print technology, news only travelled by word of mouth or via letters. For centuries, the newspaper served its purpose and spread information and increased knowledge throughout society, in an exponential manner linked to levels of consumerism and capitalism in various countries. But today? Does it continue to make as much sense as it did in the 17th century or even 20 years ago? Our thirst for knowledge and information continues to increase, but so does our ability to receive and read news in alternate formats. Consider what I see as the shortcomings of newspapers.
First, their size and format. I am quite certain there must have been a good reason to select this oversized format in the first place, but I do not know it. Nor do I presently understand it. Most people reading newspapers often seem to me to be fighting with their paper rather than engaging in a communal activity. A sort of aggression seems to take place, the reader struggling to tame this stubborn and reluctant stack of organic material. Many newspapers are today experimenting with a reduction in size, and for good reasons.

Second, the environmental aspect of newspapers. I personally find them dirty but I’ll happily dismiss this observation as a result of a mild case of OCD…What is however certain, is that, in a world of degrading environmental conditions and resources, we probably do not need the additional strain created by this absurdedly large consumption of wood products and by the printing process itself. In addition, newspapers seem to have unfortunately become associated with capitalism in another way: through its representation as waste. Newspapers, sometimes only 1 hour old, can now be seen in large numbers wasting away on the streets of our cities, on the floors of our buses and trains, on the fields of our suburbs…Like the Robert De Niro character in Brazil, we are not only succumbing to an over accumulation of information, we are burying ourselves, and the environment, under the waste we create so frivolously and carelessly.

Third, with the exception of a few dedicated-to-win-the-race-on-knowing intellectuals, most of the newspapers reading people I have ever met or seen only seem to read a fraction of the paper. So much knowledge, so little interest. Or it is that only a very small percentage of a paper is actually interesting to most people, making it therefore cost-prohibitive (cost to society, not direct monetary cost to the consumer) for the level of quality offered?

ُThe good news is that progress will make the newspaper as we know it obsolete. It is only a matter of time until it is fully replaced by cell phones, pda’s, and other electronic devices or until nanotechnology allows us to keep one paper but to get fresh news on it everyday. In the meantime, I encourage anyone who cares about the environment to start getting their news from other sources and to send newspapers back to where they belong: the 17th century!

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.

Read more »

As expected, this is typical Hollywood fare, a special effect ridden roller coaster ride, high on cliches and very low on plot, character development and narrative.

Over the past few weeks, the debate has raged on regarding the plausibility of the events depicted in the film, the opinions of scientists across the globe only adding to the publicity of an already heavily marketed product. The consensus seems to be that, naturally, almost everything in the film is over the top, exaggerated, blown up out of proportions, and laden with stereotypes to cater to a target audience that, otherwise, probably wouldn’t be interested in the movie.

Read more »

Things to Come is a masterpiece of British Cinema. Based on H.G Wells’ story The Shape of Things to Come, it offers a utopian vision of the future filled with ideas and concepts that, in spite of the fact that we now know that some of these propositions were naive, are staggering in their seriousness and realization.

Often to the dismay and irritation of the cast and crew, Wells was involved in all aspects of the production of Things to Come. This is a project that was very close to his heart and he was keen on making sure that the result would be an appropriate visualization of his ideas and values. Previous screen adaptations of his work had left him unimpressed (First Men in the Moon 1919, The Island of Lost Souls 1932 and The Invisible Man 1933, among others), branding them as amateurish works. Yet, he maintained an admiration and respect for the cinematic medium and saw Things to Come as the opportunity of a lifetime (especially that he was nearing 70 at that time).

He was given almost unlimited powers (plus a substantial sum of money) by Alexander Korda, the Hungarian-born head of London Films who in the 30’s and 40’s would be responsible for many British classics. Fascinated by Wells’ mind, Korda agreed to finance the most expensive British film to date, with a budget close to £300,000.00 and a shooting schedule of one year. The film was marketed as Britain’s answer to Hollywood, a proof that the British film industry could compete with its American counterpart. It was also portrayed as a boost to the economy, bringing hundreds of new jobs for the building of the sets and for some of the scenes in the film.A remarkable aspect of this production, and a substantial contributor to its success (in the context of film history only since it achieved relatively poor commercial success), is the number of personalities and ‘experts’ who contributed to the film. William Cameron Menzies was brought on board to direct. A master visualizer, the recipient of the first Academy Award for ‘Interior Decoration’ and practically the father of the storyboard, Menzies had become famous in Hollywood for his abilities to translate scripts into powerful visual realizations. Menzies would go on to become Hollywood’s first ‘Production Designer’. Vincent Korda, Alexander’s brother, was hired as set designer, and is responsible for the majority of the visual language of the film. A major aspect of his strength as set designer was his ability to collect and compile design and architectural styles and influences and merge them together to create an outstanding final product. As such, one can detect in the many facets of the design of Things to Come various influences, and in some cases, direct contributions, from several masters of that time: Bel Geddes’ streamline concepts influenced the designs of the bombers and tanks as well as various shapes in the interior decoration, Fernand Leger provided ideas for some of the costumes and concepts, Le Corbusier’s work inspired the design of the city of the future with its suspended gardens, much of the furniture design came from Oliver Hill and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy brought his skills to the design of some of the machinery and various objects.

Read more »

British Science Fiction cinema has always lived in the shadow of its American counterpart, either as a result of a direct effort to emulate an American style to enable the films to reach broader markets or as an indirect consequence of the fact that, since the 50’s, Science Fiction cinema has been associated with America, drawing on its rich heritage of comics and magazines.

But British Science Fiction cinema has in fact a much greater legacy than is often given credit to. Since the beginning of the 20th century, various British directors and producers have explored the genre, often taking it into new directions, pushing its boundaries, and drawing on the wealth of ideas and masterful works which British Science Fiction writers like H.G Wells, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Arthur C. Clarke, John Wyndham and Michael Moorcock have produced over the years.

Read more »

While The Day the Earth Caught Fire was filmed and released in 1961, the idea first came to director Val Guest in 1954, two years after England detonated its first nuclear device.

He wrote an initial screenplay, which, in spite of Guest’s established reputation thanks to films such as The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and The Abominable Snowman (1957), was turned down by several studios before finally being accepted by British Lion.

It is therefore within a context of 50’s and early 60’s cold war and nuclear paranoia that The Day the Earth Caught Fire must be appreciated.

Recipient of a British Academy Award for best screenplay in 1961, the film is in fact a very serious treatise not only on the foolishness of nuclear activity by scientists and governments, but also on the potential impact such activities could have on the climate and on social structures.

Read more »

I am extremely fond of the Russian Avant-Garde movement that took place in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, especially between 1905 and 1920. This was a period of great upheaval and changes. And change usually leads to the creation of rich and interesting experiences. Painters of that time such as Kandinsky, Rodchenko, Malevich, Goncharova, Shevchenko, Chagall, Exter, Rozanova created a mix of French Cubism and Italian Futurism which reflected their desire to blend folk culture with modernism and the pursuit of abstraction. It is beautiful to see how the architects and designers of that time came up with the most amazing visions and representations of the future, most of which would unfortunately remain at the concept stage. But ultimately, what interests me the most in this movement is the artists’ thirst for the future, their desire to reach and give their Utopia a meaning.