Hey everyone, hope you're all having a good three day weekend. About 3-4 years ago Dr Young recommended this film to me so I decided I would watch and review it as I have always had it on my to-watch list but never quite got round to it. I would definitely recommend watching it but feel free to read this review first, it includes a couple of semi-spoilers but nothing major, it spoils nothing after the first 20-30 minutes and bearing in mind it's a 2 hour film, not a major problem. Enjoy and please offer praise and constructive criticism wherever you see fit!
Equilibrium is a film set in a post-apocalyptic, dystopian world in which a totalitarian state forces it's citizens to take emotion inhibiting drugs in order to remove all elements of feeling from human life. This is done to avert war and is a result of a world war III which destroyed most of the planet causing the remaining power to repress all human emotion in order to stop feelings such as anger, sorrow and jealousy leading to the destruction of the human race (if you look on youtube the first 10 minutes of the film explains it much better). However, there is a grim side to this 'Great society' in which anyone who refuses or does not take the emotion-inhibiting drugs (also known as Intervals) is exterminated in an inevitably instantaneous and unfeeling manner. The main character is Christian Bale who plays one of the beautifully named Grammaton Clerics (note the use of cleric, I will discuss the significance of this religious connotation later) who are people who hunt out and exterminate those who indulge in feelings, yet when he is forced to kill his colleague to whom he was very close he begins to stop taking his intervals and have feelings himself.
The main strength for this film lies entirely in the plotline as it poses such an interesting and thought-provoking concept that it is difficult not to be fascinated by this dystopia. It forces the audience to weigh up whether human emotion and feeling is more important than peace and safety, with the film itself coming to the conclusion that no matter how much you may attempt to suppress human feelings, it is such a valuable part of our lives that everything becomes meaningful without it. Certainly this whole idea is demonstrated in an interrogation scene in which a 'sense-offender' (someone who has stopped taking intervals and now has feelings) argues to John Preston (Christian Bale, the protagonist) "What is the point of you?" A confused Preston replies that his point is to protect the continuity of the 'Great Society' that they live in and the sense-offender retorts by saying That is circular, your point is to protect your protection, where's the meaning? Preston then asks the sense-offender what the point to her life is to which she replies passionately "To feel." This is pretty much the face-value message of the film which is that we should be allowed to feel what we want without inhibition, conditioning or repression, all of which are exhibited by Libria. The title is aptly chosen and reflects this, as one must have an equilibrium between emotion and control as either extreme will lead to bad consequences.
The actual meaning of the plot itself is not entirely clear but I will have a go at deciphering it. The fact that the elite Grammaton Clerics are called what they are is clearly a connotation of the repression that institutions such as religion sometimes force upon people, this was especially evident before The Enlightenment when the Roman Catholic church essentially dictated all important goings-ons in the world and forced people with violence or propaganda to obey them. They preached a gospel through the use of blood and armies in many cases with instances like the various crusades or the witch-hunting hysteria or possibly the best example would be when they attempted to force Galileo into denying that the Earth was not the centre of the universe after publishing his findings about our world.
Another significant parallel is that with Nazi Germany. Usually I hate to bring this up in context of totalitarian states as it is so overused that I grow weary of hearing the same arguments, however it is necessary here as the film repeatedly shows imagery of Hitler and SS troops. The 'Great Society' in which Equilibrium is set constantly preaches the fear of war and uses Hitler and the Nazis as one of it's key examples but the irony is that their society is far more similar to Hitler's regime than they would like to admit. For example, Nazi Germany had a system of imposing huge public surveillance through the use of monitors. This was essentially a hierarchy of people from the Fuhrer to people listening at keyholes in which anyone who said anything against Hitler or his regime would be brutally punished. Famous examples have sprung up of children reporting on their parents and you can imagine that the atmosphere of distrust would have been unbearable, with everyone encouraged to report on each other. Such is the same in Equilibrium with one significant scene at the beginning that mirrors this when Preston accidentally smashes his interval on the floor and his son walks in, stares at it and asks him "You are going to get a replacement aren't you dad?" in an almost menacing tone of 'If you don't I will report you to the authorities.' The other obvious parallel with the Nazis is the fact that they brutally kill all their opposition as in sense-offenders but this is somewhat less important as virtually every totalitarian regime in a film does this.
Moving on from the meaning, as an evaluation of the film in general it was extremely well directed with imagery being very cleverly used. One example is when Preston is thinking of his wife and then it changes to a shot of him by himself in a double (sort of, they have two beds pushed together) bed and this emphasises the loneliness he feels, although this is somewhat a classic shot in movies where the director wishes to show that the person is isolated. In terms of acting there were no stellar performances, Christian Bale plays fairly decent role as Preston although I can't help but feel like his portrayal of the transition from sterility to emotion was very one-dimensional, with no elements of subtlety involved although as a credit to him he does do his job relatively well. Sean Bean unfortunately had little to no time to shine out as he usually does although he had one beautifully touching line at the beginning in which Preston is about to kill him when he discovers Bean is a sense-offender, and then when Bean explains why he's doing it and attempts to show Preston (Bale) that he can't understand the meaning of feelings but should try to, he says "But I being poor, have only my dreams." This line is delivered with such feeling and emotion that it sets the tone of the entire film and justifies the huge cost of human life that the rebels take to overthrow the state.
Overall I would give the film a 7.7 as I feel that it was reasonably well acted although nothing special to report, it was well shot and there was one scene which induced huge emotion purely because of the camera work in which a disturbed and upset Preston pulls away the coverings of the window and for the first time fully sees a magnificent and inspiring view of Libria (the city they live in) and one suddenly thinks to themselves 'I take that for granted but looking at it now like this, from Preston's perspective makes me realise how awful it would be to have no emotion.' However, the most credit goes to the script and plotline which was very well written and made the film not only intriguing, but an allegory in many ways of previous totaliarian states, most notably in my opinion the church but that is definitely one up for debate.
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