I Love Dystopian Nightmares!!

Sticking to the nightmare theme,I usually have a nice feeling about movies or books which promise to paint a soul-shattering vision of the world to come, and in their own way provide a word of caution for the present generation Or alternatively, strip the viewer of any shred of faith he might have in humanity.

There has been a great line of such works starting with Orwell's 1984 (some might say starting with the Book of Revelation or H.G Wells War of the Worlds, but I dont mean that sort of vision of the future where there's a show down with god, or aliens, or starship-trooper-devouring- bugs) right down to Bladerunner or The Twelve Monkeys. I find that a dose of dystopian vision once in a while helps develop a healthy attitude towards life, sometimes bordering on paranoid. And it was with unabashed glee that I got to watch two really good, not great, but good, movies, both potraying a hellish future, wildly different in the their vision- one deals with a childless future, the other, a 1973 classic, is about the world reeling under the weight of supporting the dietary needs of a huge population.

In the first, humanity has become sterile. Women can no longer become pregnant. No one knows why or how it has happened, and it's been nearly two decades since the last human child was born!! Thats the premise of the movie Children of Men, Alfonso Cuaron's ( Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Y tu mama tambien) sci-fi fantasy nightmarish vision of the not so distant future. " No children. No future. No hope" says the tagline, and the visuals in the movie really do provide an atmosphere of a bleak, sterile world (well, if not the world, atleast London and thereabout where the story unfolds). People are in sorrow when the youngest living human being is murdered, Theo Faron (Clive Owen) goes around with the right sort of depressed look, there are cages lining the streets filled with thousands of immigrants, military police walk around in a kind of SS attire keeping guard and protecting the card holding citizens from marauding bands of refugees and subversives and terrorists with bomb plots, and there is Michael Caine as a goofy, pot-growing, drug consuming, good-at-heart ex-hippie. Oh, and to lighten the mood there's some Radiohead in the background (But you would probably notice that Rolling Stones and John Lennon are heard more predominantly on the score).

The second one that I watched to make that thrilling feeling of impending doom, and all pervading pessimism to linger a little bit longer, was the classic dystopian cracker of a movie, Soylent Green. The setting is New York this time around, and a uncharacteristically vulnerable Charlton Heston is the unlucky Detective Robert Thorn on whose mantle falls the responibility of finding out the AWFUL TRUTH about Soylent Green. Over the course of three decades since it was made, some of the movie's ability to shock the viewer with the awful truth has probably worn off ( we are so much more inured to shocking truths), but it doesn't fail to deliver the shivers. Here again I really liked the ssetting of the movie with scenes of overcrowded New York. There people everywhere, sleeping upon staircases, overflowing out of churches offering shelter, every inch of space is valuable, and only the rich get to eat real food. The masses survive on 'nutritious' synthetic 'food', the best being soylent green. The movie is based on the novel by Harry Harrison and it is well worth a watch on the weekend with your girlfriend followed by a delightful dinner.

The movie's famous last line has featured in lots of places, and of course, has featured on the Simpsons as well.