Tag: Dystopia
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Planet of the Apes. Dir. Franklin J. Schaffner. Twentieth Century Fox. 1968.
Representation of Race through Franklin J. Schaffner’s ‘Space’ By 1968 North America had experienced over a decade of significant political uproar about the oppression that African-Americans suffered from, with this being known formally as the Civil Rights Movement. This was also the year that Franklin J. Schaffner’s Planet of the Apes was released. The film extrapolates issues…
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Weekend. Dir. Jean-Luc Godard. Athos Films. 1967.
Weekend (1967), dir. Jean-Luc Godard (watch the full film with English subtitles here) Jean-Luc Godard’s 1967 film Weekend follows the distinctly middle-class experience of Roland and Corinne as they take a trip to Corinne’s family home in the country to secure her inheritance from her father, which, as we will find out, they will acquire by any means necessary.…
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Dir. Garth Jennings. Touchstone Pictures, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. 2005.
Garth Jennings’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy introduces its science fiction narrative by destabilizing the assumption that human intelligence is greater than that of all other animals by conceptualizing that they are in fact only “the third most intelligent creature on the planet” and dolphins are the second. A satirical image entitled ‘Why Dolphins are the…
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Planet of the Apes. Dir. Franklin J. Schaffner. 20th Century Fox. 1968.
Planet of the Apes (1968), dir. Franklin J. Schaffner It is from the Planet of the Apes’s first encounter with its ‘more or less human’ characters that we are made aware of their muteness; something that shapes the human/animal relations throughout the film. In his ignorance of the subverted hierarchy the film explores, Taylor, the main character,…
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Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Dir. Hayao Miyazaki. Studio Ghibli. 1984.
Hayao Miyazaki’s 1984 film ‘Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind’ follows the adventures of a young princess named Nausicaä who is part of one of the last tribes of humans remaining on Earth. A toxic forest has taken over most of the world as a result of mankind’s pollution; Nausicaä seeks to save the…
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Stalker. Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky. Mosfilm. 1979.
Andrei Tarkovsky’s science-fiction film, Stalker (1979), is marked by depression, desolation and barren wastelands.[1] The film’s loose narrative follows three men into The Zone, a disturbingly conscious and supernatural area of nuclear disaster. Whilst there, the eponymous Stalker encounters a black dog at various points on the journey. As the Stalker waits for his wife in the bar,…
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The Lobster. Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos. Picturehouse Entertainment. 2015.
The Lobster is a modern parable in which societal norms are completely called into question by absurdity of form. In the not too distant, or not too past, world of The Lobster, single people are sent to a hotel in which they must find a mate in 45 days or otherwise be turned into an animal of…
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Planet of the Apes. Dir. Franklin J. Schaffner. Twentieth Century Fox. 1968.
Planet of the Apes is a story that takes a look at what the world would be like if Apes filled the role of humans, and vice-versa. What the film manages to do is not only point out how humans perceive animals as wild, and something that should be locked up and studied, but also…
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Planet of the Apes. Dir. Franklin J. Schaffner. 20th Century Fox. 1968.
Evolutionary Reversal in Planet of the Apes Planet of the Apes (1968) brilliantly satirizes the process by which humans simultaneously invented the concept of the “animal kingdom” and appointed themselves to its highest position. Adapting Pierre Boulle’s celebrated novel, Monkey Planet (1963), director Franklin J. Schaffner and screenwriters Rod Serling and Michael Wilson use the speculative licence of the…