Double Dystopia

I love dystopian nightmare films. They've got everything I adore - retro visions of the future, desperate, doomed protagonists and a dim view of society. Tonight we revel in two horrific imaginings of the future past. First up, Escape From New York. This is a dark, dark movie full of dimly lit alleys, burned out buildings and sewer dwelling freaks. The premise couldn't be more awesome - It's the year 1997 (imagine that!) and the island of Manhattan has been a maximum security prison for 9 years. There are no guards or police inside the walls as they left the prisoners to their own devices and allowed them to create a society of their own. You know what that means - lots of burning car frames and tire iron fights.


That's enough plot for an entire movie but then John Carpenter turns up the heat by having Air Force One crash into the island so now the president is at the mercy of the degenerate criminals running free. Kurt Russell plays "Snake" Plisskin, a war veteran turned criminal assigned to save the president and (drumroll please) Escape! From New York!

Imagine if one of the gangs in The Warriors was made up of pirates and heads of state and you've got yourself Escape From New York. This movie is very much of its time and has 1981 stamped all over it from the cheesy effects to the giant phones to the wonderfully synthy John Carpenter soundtrack.

Unfortunately it doesn't kick as much ass as it should. The plot is great but the pacing is glacial. Ernest Borgnine is wonderful as a Molotov cocktail throwing cabbie and you can't help but love the chandeliers on the hood of Isaac Hayes' car but Kurt Russell growls rather than acts and overall it gets a 6.

The second film of the night was THX 1138, a movie as washed out and white as Escape From New York was murky and black. This dystopian nightmare follows three inhabitants of a fascistic futureworld where emotions are squashed thanks to platefuls of sedatives and genuine human interactions seem next to impossible. It is very creepy and unnerving, especially the robot policemen with silver faces. They wander around keeping the peace and utter canned phrases to manage the denizens of this citysized asylum. After the heroes lock themselves in a room to escape the dronebots, the metal cops plead "Please try the lock on your door, we can't get in" in emotionless, calm tones right before they cut the doorknob off.

It's hard to imagine this film coming from George Lucas. It's a difficult movie to watch and is full of artsy-Kubrickian touches that seem at odds with the intentions of a man who later created much derided cutesy creatures such as the Ewoks and Jar Jar Binks. This movie also shows a very singular point of view that is prickly and off-putting, not what you'd expect from the creator of one of the most popular fantasy series of all time. I was really impressed by the look of this film. It was beautifully shot and the special effects were amazing. It was made 11 years before Escape From New York but looked very modern where Escape looked like a badly produced home movie. Even though this was slow and somewhat depressing, it was a joy to watch and I give it a 7.

I was surprised in many ways by this movie but most of all, I was shocked how funny it was. Mostly, it was a very dark view of society and "progress" and the future but it had moments of black humor like the scene where nameless control room operators blithely fiddle with knobs, trying to figure out a machine while Robert Duvall writhes in pain as a result of their fumbling about. The vast gap between the excruciating torture they are putting him through and the indifference they show as they focus their concern not on his reactions but on exploring the different options of this pain machine perfectly sums up the way this film warns about valuing cold, robotic efficiency over warm humanism and struck me as really funny.

Yeah, it was a real cut up.