The Blog of Lone

Here’s a short article I wrote for Helium.com in response to someone else’s terrible analysis of ‘Brave New World’. If you’ve read the book, take a peek and see what you think …

The dystopia future that Huxley depicts in ‘Brave New World’ is one marked by the degeneration of the individual within the social whole, the reduction of the individual to that unit of the economic, the consumer. Physiological and mental conditioning reduce the characters to mere cells of the social organism; programmed with impulses that perpetuate the system. Communication between most characters is restricted to the language of consumerism, the discussion of the latest material product available; which is ultimately devoid of meaning and no form of communication at all. The drug soma provides any required escapism. The society of BNW is one where “everyone belongs to everyone” sexually, promiscuity is used to subdue the sexual impulse and to harness it to the social cause. Huxley’s use of language, using the word “pneumatic” to describe Lenina’s sexuality, shows the reduction of the individual’s physical impulses to terms of industrial economics.

While the individualistic ideology of freedom that John proposes as having more intrinsic worth than the conditioned happiness of the state initially appeals to the modern reader as the more worthy cause, Huxley does not moralise so simplistically. Although John’s individualistic ideology may sound more genuine, it is ultimately flawed. The freedom to seek happiness and be hurt in the process incorporates its own defeat; to be hurt is not happiness, but it is freedom. Happiness is then sought but unachieved; freedom is an unhappy state of being. In contrast, while demeaning to John’s idea of the individual the citizens of culture of BNW know happiness by their own definition. That it is a limited form of happiness does not matter because through conditioning they are made unaware of any other possible way of seeing the world. Those that do somehow slip through the system are still part of it, they may be unhappy with the social system, but they are bound to it. Ultimately those opposed to the system are still incorporated into it by being shipped off to islands where they will not trouble the social whole.

Huxley contrasts this two systems of thought but does not place one as morally superior to the other. To be free or to be a happy drone. Each can only be judged on its own merits. To each their own seems better. You cannot judge both ideologies by both different standards simultaneously.

It in this ambiguity that Huxley fails to forecast social demise.

John’s individualistic society of the past can be equated to our own. The society of BNW can be seen to represent the future, but likewise incorporates parodied but recognisable elements of modern society. Huxley’s novel is totalitarian in that there is no alternative offered between the two. Neither is better than the other as the individualistic society has/will evolve into the mass culture of BNW. Both systems are totalitarian in that they offer no alternative to themselves. The BNW is self perpetuating, there is no inherent demise in its system. The ’savage’ society seeks individual happiness but does not find it, this search will however lead it to become the BNW society, offering each individual happiness at the cost of their freedom, unaware of the trade off taking place. There is no social demise, the individualistic system is self perpetuating in that it has already evolved into the BNW; all that remains is a historical preservation of the past to contrast to the novel’s present.
Both society’s are degenerate in one form or another, but neither is in demise. They may mock modern society with their parodies of current social conditions, but neither offers an alternative to it.

Huxley’s depiction of a dystopian future fails to forecast a social demise but instead parodies and mocks aspects of modern society; it may be satirical but it is far from prophetic.

WARNING: SPOILERS 

I’ve got to say that 28 Days Later, the original title in the sequence is one of my favourite films.  So it was with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation that I went to see 28 Weeks Later, hoping that it was capable of living up to the original, worried that it couldn’t.  I was right to be worried.

In the original film the Rage virus took over the UK spreading until there was only a few struggling survivors holding out against the zombie-like infected.  The film opens in what is undoubtedly it’s best scene with Don, his wife, and a few other survivors sitting down to a meal in a barricaded farm house.  When a small child comes a knocking, you know it’s not long before the Infected are close behind, hungry for their meal too.  When they break in Don and his wife are trapped in a room, he has to choose between trying to save his wife and certainly dying, or leaving her and running for his life.  He runs.  And this is what the film is really all about.  It’s not the zombies, the gore, the special effects, that are the star of the film here; it’s the human story of hard decisions.  It’s a film about telling your kids that you couldn’t save their mother, and then having to confront the truth when she is found alive.  It’s a film about human morality under pressure, of whether you’d shoot a child who may or may not be infected because you’re ordered too, of whether you’d risk your life to save others.  The Infected zombies create the stage and the situation upon which the film is set, but it is the human dilemma upon which it turns.  This film almost punishes you for having ever thought that there are simple heroic characters in cinema, instead of complex individuals like in real life.

Robert Carlyle is perfectly cast as the family man Don, forced to make some horrible survival decisions, and it was to my surprise that he spent half the film as a zombie.  Carlyle’s acting skill allows him to show all the facial emotion you would expect from someone in his situation, and the scene where he becomes infected should get him an Oscar in my opinion; it’s brilliantly acted, and utterly, utterly, horrifying.   The rest of the cast isn’t bad, especially Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton (what a name!) as Don’s children, Tammy and Andy.  It’s unfortunate that Rose Byrne provides a lack lustre Mjr. Scarlett Ross, and that the American troops are protrayed as nothing more than gungho stereotyes; but with strong acting from the rest this can be overlooked.

Which brings me to the director, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo.  In films like this the director is almost another character, so strongly can you feel their presence on the screen.  It was Danny Boyle’s strong vision of a ruined London that entranced in the original film, and JCF had a lot to live up to in this one.  There are certain scenes that are truly excellent; such as the opening scene where Don is sprinting to the river, and infected are pouring off the hills around him, and there are scenes that are less so.  Part of JCF’s approach is to very much put the zombies into the background; apart from Carlyle’s zombie self, we see all the other’s in flashes, or at a distance; which is quite a feat in a film featuring several hundred zombies.  When they are up close, such as in the crowded basement scene where the zombies break into a locked room full of people and mayhem ensues, (which really had the potential to frighten: crowded small space, no lights, stampeding people who can’t escape), all the audience really sees are dizzying flashes that get the impression across but don’t truly frighten; unless you’re frightened of having an epileptic fit.  The zombies are always a menace just over the horizon, never in your face.  Also 28 Weeks Later may be one of the few films to actually suffer from a bigger budget.  It certainly lacks the indie feel of the first film, and there is one notable bit where a helicopter is used to decapitate a bunch of hungry Infected that is straight from Hollywood.  You can almost feel JCF thinking, ‘well I’ve got all this budget left over, how can I get rid of it?’

Overall the film is pretty good if you’re interested in seeing a slightly unusual zombie flick, and extremely good if you’re willing to look past the fact that there are zombie’s on the screen and to try and see the deeper human side of the film.  I’d recommend watching it just for Robert Carlyle’s performance alone.

7/10 Licks.

Oh, that Simon Pegg.  He certainly knows how to make a comedy. 

Hot Fuzz gives the same comic treatment to the Hollywood genre of the buddy cop film as Shaun of the Dead did to the horror genre.  The result is hilarious from start to finish and well deserving of the prediction of funniest film of the year; its doubtful anything will be able top it in the coming months.  For better or worse, you’ll certainly never look at the police in the same way again. 

Having seen the trailer I have to admit that I was a bit dubious whether Pegg would be just cashing in on his earlier cinematic success, I wondered whether he could pull off the same ’shortcut’ gag (fans of Shaun of the Dead will know what I mean) in two consecutive films.  Let me assure, he can.

Somehow the sheer belief that Pegg brings to his role convinces you that the rather averagely built actor is in fact a hot shot police marksman, and Frost is perfectly cast in his role as the mentally slow but lovable sidekick; once you’ve seen it you really won’t be able to imagine anyone else playing the roles.  I’ve got to say that throughout the film the only times that I stopped laughing was when gasping for air.  It really just was that good.  I went to see it with the lovely Rachel, who’se got a very different sense of humour than myself, but we both thought it was a great film and genuinely funny in that special way that only British comedy can be.  Whether you want to laugh at a cop busting a leaping karate kick on a shotgun wielding grandmother, or at the send up of rural living, this is a film guaranteed to suit any taste in humour.  Just a warning though, some of the gory effects really do leave you bodily cringing with your hand in front of your eyes going ‘Gah, that’s gotta hurt!’; but at the same time they’re funny.  Pegg’s funny.  Frost’s funny.  You get the idea.  This film is seriously FUNNY.  Prepared to be amused.

Ps. Look out for Bill Bailey! 

Lone - Heh. Sick Burn!