This theme was actually interpreted as early as 1966 by François Truffaut, a well-known representative of the French New Wave movement, in his film "Fahrenheit 451" (Fahrenheit 451). "Fahrenheit 451" is also about the future world. The rulers believe that books will only create unrealistic fantasies and have no practical use, so they burn books and prohibit people from reading them. It sounds a lot like Qin Shi Huang's burning books and pit Confucians. Aside from the similar plot setting of Fahrenheit 451, Equilibrium has made the story too simplistic. Preston's change is somewhat inexplicable, very sudden. The main reason seems to be that he is not on medication. However, as an elite of the Clerick class, well trained and brainwashed, it is impossible that the willpower is so weak that it can only be controlled by taking medicine. Preston, who was not on medication, was simply sentimental, beyond words. And if his partner's death troubled him, he didn't even take any action when his wife was caught for showing affection, why is he suddenly finding out now?
Christian Bale (Christian Bell), who has had an excellent performance in American Psycho, plays Preston in this film, but due to the limitations of the film's role itself, there is not much room to play. Equilibrium has many shadows of Matrix "The Matrix" in terms of character modeling and combat. Preston and those Clericks have the same outfits as Matrix. When I first appeared, I was dressed in black, like Neo in The Matrix. I thought I borrowed Neo's costume for use. But Bell looked colder than Reeves, with a bit of American Psycho madness in his eyes. I like to watch the cold man melt slowly, but unfortunately he melts too fast. The martial arts design in this film should be said to be unique, especially Gun Kata. This is a form of martial arts that combines western gunfights with eastern kung fu. Different from gunfights, which are usually long-range shooting, or judo, which is hand-to-hand combat, instead, guns are used as weapons for close combat, and sometimes guns are even used as a cold weapon similar to a knife or sword. This gun karate is refreshing with its dizzyingly fast movements and accompanying fire, although I doubt it's justified. However, most of the martial arts movements are still a bit contrived, and the look of pretending to be cool is too obvious. Bell still poses after every fight.
The buildings in the film are quite unique. First of all, unlike the urban scenes in other sci-fi films, where everything is blurred together, the urban buildings are just an empty background. The buildings in Equilibrium have a clear shape and a certain sense of reality, especially in the first few In the scenes of propagating "doctrine", strong, simple, elegant, and cruel architectural forms are used to set off an excellent way of life under the "totalitarian" rule. There is also the headquarters building, which also uses the same composition principles, but there are many details, so that viewers can realize that although the film is only a fiction in time, the people here live in a scene with a certain sense of reality, and these architectural styles are not Copy the traditional style we take for granted. Probably the architectural scenes in the Matrix are not as imaginative as here, perhaps because the Matrix is meant to simulate "traditional" life scenes. But this is only from an architectural point of view. When it comes to the overall concept of the future world, Matrix is obviously better. It can be said that in all science fiction movies, the design of all life scenes is essentially a vision of our future way of life. Like Spierberg's sci-fi movies from the 1970s, the environmental modeling in the story has always played the role of the front-end spokesperson of the trend of that era, but in terms of the level of detail in the description of the city and the building itself, the classic is another sci-fi movie. The movie Blade Runner, the obvious Blade Runner's architectural shape is to go beyond our real-life environment, the farther away from our imagination, the better. But environments in Equilibrium are drawn differently. Although it is also a fiction of a future city, it draws more cultural elements and symbols in the design. From the first few street scenes, I was reminded of the new administrative district of the ancient city of Rome. This is a classic example of the strong ideology of urban planning and architectural styling under Mussolini's totalitarian rule during World War II. The scale of the street is grand, the architectural elements are single and orderly, a repressed and breathable order. Of course, there is a big difference between the 40 years of modernist architecture in Italy and the current minimalist architectural ideas embodied in the film Equilibrium. But what the two have in common is the conscious shaping of the building itself as an active cultural element.
I have to admit that the production of the whole film is still relatively delicate. The future city made by computer is very detailed and spectacular. Many small details, such as weapons, instruments used for injecting drugs, etc., are very beautiful and exquisite. Underneath this gorgeous package, however, is a bland rumination on a similar subject matter. A film critic once said that if the future of the world is really as described in Equilibrium, then Equilibrium must not be included in the list of works of art that are burned, because watching this film does not inspire people at all. Feelings. Although it is acerbic, it is also very expressive.
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