Equilibrium
2009-May-26, Tuesday 09:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mellowtigger(caution: movie plot points coming!)
Earlier tonight I was getting desperate to go someplace different. I didn't go outside to the garden because today my mere presence in the back yard was enough to set off the burglar alarm on my neighbor's car that was yards/meters away. *sigh* I couldn't find a movie that interested me, so I visited Rotten Tomatoes to find what is recommended these days. Instead, I found a recent article about the top 10 movies with Christian Bale. They left out not only the one movie that most people remember him for ("American Psycho"), but more importantly they left out the one special movie that I will always remember him for... "Equilibrium".
The movie postulates a "gun kata", a fighting style designed around the statistical probabilities of bullet trajectories and how to avoid them. Most people see the movie and are impressed by this theory and the resulting fight scenes, which are nicely done. The movie is quite violent, but that's very intentional. It's meant to evoke strong emotional reactions from people as a way to illustrate the theme of the movie which requires emotional calm from its fictional characters. The mass shooting of some dogs in kennels is one such scene. The main character manages to rescue one puppy. Later, though, he gets caught with it, and the resulting slaughter of the police patrol by him is arguably the best fight scene in the movie.
I wish that Christian Bale and the director of that movie could create a new movie specifically about autism. They got so close to it already with Equilibrium that it would hardly be a stretch to go one step farther. You see, the movie postulates a solution that solves the problem of humanity's destructive nature. It's a drug called Prozium. All citizens are required to take it, on penalty of execution (often by incineration). The main character, a fighting cleric named John Preston, stops taking his Prozium... and then he learns the overwhelming sensory and emotional power of the world within him and around him. It's a world that many autistics inhabit already.
Today, I turned in two more grant requests for the NoLAR conference this fall. Hopefully, we'll have it this year. I don't see how attendees can really afford it if we have to charge full price for the event. We'll probably just call it off, if it comes to that. When I saw the reference to Christian Bale, but not the reference to this one particular movie, I thought of the box full of stim toys that I bought for the first conference. Toys that I handed over to the Autism Society of Minnesota afterwards so they could use them for the rest of the year.
It really would take so little change to the story to make it about the dangers to humanity of emotions run amok... and the dangers to humanity of those same emotions kept subdued in tiny little cells, all from an autistic perspective in today's real world.
- The Mellow Tigger
Earlier tonight I was getting desperate to go someplace different. I didn't go outside to the garden because today my mere presence in the back yard was enough to set off the burglar alarm on my neighbor's car that was yards/meters away. *sigh* I couldn't find a movie that interested me, so I visited Rotten Tomatoes to find what is recommended these days. Instead, I found a recent article about the top 10 movies with Christian Bale. They left out not only the one movie that most people remember him for ("American Psycho"), but more importantly they left out the one special movie that I will always remember him for... "Equilibrium".
The movie postulates a "gun kata", a fighting style designed around the statistical probabilities of bullet trajectories and how to avoid them. Most people see the movie and are impressed by this theory and the resulting fight scenes, which are nicely done. The movie is quite violent, but that's very intentional. It's meant to evoke strong emotional reactions from people as a way to illustrate the theme of the movie which requires emotional calm from its fictional characters. The mass shooting of some dogs in kennels is one such scene. The main character manages to rescue one puppy. Later, though, he gets caught with it, and the resulting slaughter of the police patrol by him is arguably the best fight scene in the movie.
I wish that Christian Bale and the director of that movie could create a new movie specifically about autism. They got so close to it already with Equilibrium that it would hardly be a stretch to go one step farther. You see, the movie postulates a solution that solves the problem of humanity's destructive nature. It's a drug called Prozium. All citizens are required to take it, on penalty of execution (often by incineration). The main character, a fighting cleric named John Preston, stops taking his Prozium... and then he learns the overwhelming sensory and emotional power of the world within him and around him. It's a world that many autistics inhabit already.
He learns visual beauty in his own bedroom, tearing away the mandated glass covering to see (really See!) what he already knows lies outside.  |
He learns the evocative power of scent from some items stored when they were collected from an imprisoned woman. |
He learns the emotional force in sound at someone's secret hideaway that he finds during a raid. |
He learns the reassuring power of touch by watching an old woman hold a handrail as she walks up the crowded stairs. He dares take off his glove to run his palm along the rail too. Autistic stimming!  |
Today, I turned in two more grant requests for the NoLAR conference this fall. Hopefully, we'll have it this year. I don't see how attendees can really afford it if we have to charge full price for the event. We'll probably just call it off, if it comes to that. When I saw the reference to Christian Bale, but not the reference to this one particular movie, I thought of the box full of stim toys that I bought for the first conference. Toys that I handed over to the Autism Society of Minnesota afterwards so they could use them for the rest of the year.
It really would take so little change to the story to make it about the dangers to humanity of emotions run amok... and the dangers to humanity of those same emotions kept subdued in tiny little cells, all from an autistic perspective in today's real world.
It gets a little confusing whether the lesson of the movie is to maintain control over emotions or to unleash them and change the world. It's a point of inquiry that I recognize. I am, after all...
Preston: She's scheduled for combustion. Tomorrow.
Jurgen: I know. You know, I was like you. But the first thing we learn about emotion is that it has its price. Complete paradox. But without restraint, without control, emotion is chaos.
Preston: But how is that different-
Jurgen: The difference being that when we want to feel, we can. It's just that... some of us... some of us have to forgo that luxury so that the rest can have it. Some very few of us have to force ourselves not to feel. Like me. Like you.
Preston: What can I do?
Jurgen: You can kill Father.
- The Mellow Tigger
no subject
Date: 2009-May-27, Wednesday 06:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-May-28, Thursday 12:01 pm (UTC)Having just finished watching it, I'd have to say the answer is simply: how to know which is the right tool for the job at hand.
no subject
Date: 2009-May-28, Thursday 10:56 pm (UTC)The above quote from Jurgen seems to be the "middle path" solution, expecting people to exercise their own self-control at all times and then Feel only when it's appropriate to do so. Not quite the Vulcan solution, but also interesting.