Tom Hiddleston made the perfect science fiction film for our dystopian nightmare

By Drew Dietsch | Published 1 hour ago

“… sometimes it was difficult not to believe that they lived in the future that had already taken place, and now it was exhausted.” – JG Ballard

The future is something we are constantly thinking of as humans. Not in a note “What’s for dinner tonight?” shape. I am talking about the future. Our dreams and nightmares on where civilization, society, technology and humanity are directed.

And at this time, I have to say that the future feels gloomy. One of the most important factors in this terrible feeling that so many people are having about the future is reduced to a growing and never apparent division between the rich and the rest of us.

It is difficult not to see a few very selected people at the top are making the miserable life for all of them.

Obviously, this is not a problem that arose during the night and many excellent works of art have explored the history of classes.

But, there is a story that has been eating me since I declared my movie #1 of 2016. A movie that has only become more powerful and terrifying every year that passes. A history of brutal, dark, absurd and unpleasant science fiction that the perfect couple does with the apparent sliding of our world in a crazy dystopia.

And Loki is in him! Naked!

Of great height

This is Of great heightA movie everywhere will tell you that it came out in 2015, but those are all dates of the Film Festival that they do not tell. The wide launch was in 2016. It is a 2016 film. IMDB and Wikipedia can be folded.

Of great heightThe 2016 film is based on the 1975 novel by JG Ballard. Ballard was mainly known for writing post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction that dealt with ideas about social decomposition and the base nature of human beings.

In Of great heightThe story focuses on Robert Laing, a new tenant in a modern apartment complex that offers everything one must exist in today’s life. For example, there is an entire floor of the building that is a supermarket, so residents do not even need to go to make their purchases.

It is clear that the building is very divided by class and this is maintained on purpose by the different floors, with the rich exorbitants who fill the highest and poorest tenants who occupy apartments below.

Things fall apart

As the story progresses, the inhabitants of the building begin to experience power cuts as they become increasingly dependent on the building for their daily lives. People stop going to their work, parents stop sending children to school, and there seems to be a complete civilization that is formed within the height that serves the base impulses of humanity.

All this is established with the very clear metaphor of the great height. As this social apocalypse intensifies, the rich decadent continue to live in the highest floors and even assault the lower floors for supplies and assault the poor tenants in the dark during the interruptions.

When it was time to turn Ballard’s novel into a film, writer Amy Jump and director Ben Wheatley made a very conscious and integral decision in the adaptation. Ballard’s novel does not give a definitive year for the events that take place, but it is supposed to be seen as a very close future as part of its warning history.

The future has already happened

He Of great height The film establishes the story in 1975, the same year the novel was launched. At first, the reasoning of this may seem an opportunity to enjoy some nostalgic styles such as the fashion of the general design time or aesthetics.

But the line of the Ballard novel that makes its way in the voiceover of the movie very early is the one that began this video and is key to understanding Of great height Like a movie.

By establishing the film in the 70s and presenting its history as an example of social decline, it is arguing the creative thesis of Ballard presented in that brilliant line. The future they have promised is the one who is experiencing at this time, and has already been drained. We will return to this.

It should be said that although Of great height It is a favorite movie of mine, I recognize that it will not be a movie to … well, probably most people. This is a film in which a dog is killed and eaten in the first two minutes, and then another dog is killed by drowning. If I have learned something from my decades of watching, writing and talking about movies, it is that the public really doesn’t like when puppies die in your movie.

It only worsens

And the rest of the movie will not be much more cheerful. Tom Hiddleston plays Robert Laing and his observations about the building and his people leads to a character that many people will probably dislike. Laing is a cold man who seeks what could lead to a real human connection, but also interprets a dark joke in a rude child of the building that leads to horrible suicide.

Laing’s trip and philosophy become very passive as the building descends to chaos and anarchy. It is the type of character that probably works best in writing, but I think Hiddleston offers one of his most in layers in layers in Of great height.

This is also a film with a very niche sense of humor. As I mentioned, everything “eating a dog” at the beginning comes from the first line of Ballard’s novel, and is destined to be a little dark comedy. A similar example is when Laing sits down with the architect of the building, Anthony Royal (played by Jeremy Irons), who asks Laing for his thoughts about the building while someone is screaming in the background.

When seen from that angle, there is a great black absurd in which I love Of great heightEspecially Luke Evans like Richard Wilder, one of the tenants of the building who, as his name tells him, succumbs to his wildest impulses and behavior. Evans is deranged, throwing saliva and the total government mode. It is ridiculous and tragic to the same extent.

But, Of great height It is not full of factory in its presentation. Clint Mansell’s score is properly psychotic, jumping from a real bombardment to a childish fantasy at any time and is not the type of musical experience made to make the audience feel comfortable.

The general aspect of the film is exceptionally polished, but the dream edition is not something that the conventional public will click. I love it, since it emphasizes the idyllic dreams of progress and comfort slowly consumed by the nightmares inherent in the human condition.

And it means that we have a sequence established on a portishead cover of “SOS” of Abba, which is one of the best things of the last decade.

I could talk about Of great height For hours, but one of the reasons why I wanted to make a video is the hope that at least one person discovers Of great height Because they saw this video. So, I don’t want to separate everything in the movie.

But, the other reason I felt Of great height Denye deserved is because I see that many people begin to experience what Of great height I was talking about 2016.

The rich and the rest of us

It feels as if we were in the midst of a great cultural awareness about the Stark division between those they have and those who do not have. Many of us are realizing that the future we sold was never possible. It was the dream of someone who had already happened and is now exhausted.

At the end of Of great heightLaing has found happiness. It is to realize that the social construction created by the post-apocalyptic society of scope is probably the best reflection of humanity in all its animal nature. And he is waiting for the other to close high height to find the same descent in the said barbaric.

It is not an optimistic ending, it is bleakly comic, but I cannot help feeling a true truth. Wishing that the upper class feels the same agitation as the rest of us are experiencing.

Of great height It is quite explicit in its metaphorical demolition of capitalist society, especially in the end with a children .

I hope the world does not end up reflecting Of great height But I’m touching my dog’s recipes in case.