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THE CONGRESS, coming to cinemas August 15th, tells a postmodern story of Robin Wright, struggling as her acting career begins to decline. For a hefty sum of money, Wright agrees to sell her ‘digital image’ to Miramount studios and never act again. The studio uses a computer generated version of her to turn her into whatever they want, be that a cartoon character, an action hero or more.
It sounds good, doesn’t it, being able to become something else; to travel to another world and be an entirely ‘new’ person. And yet, there is something troubling about being a changeable product; to have a personal image controlled by a faceless studio. This film explores that tension, between a utopian idea and a dystopia result. A great concept but a disturbing outcome.
In anticipation of Ari Folman’s thought-provoking new release, we count down – in no particular order – the top 10 films about utopian or dystopian settings!
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1. THE MATRIX. DIR: THE WACHOWSKI BROTHERS
That juicy steak you eat at a fancy restaurant, the expensive glass of wine – they are just illusions, figments of your imagination. Welcome to the Matrix, a computer program designed to entrap all of humanity. The real world is a grim, colourless place, where the food tastes like runny eggs (or, more aptly described, “a bowl of snot”). Neo (Keanu Reeves), the prophesied ‘One’, is recruited by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and his crew to help liberate an enslaved humankind. Filled with bullet-dodging, expert ju-jitsu, and unbelievable feats of speed and strength, this movie shows a rebel force determined to beat the system from the inside. If the Matrix is just a complex computer program, then reality is very bleak indeed. Nonetheless, this dystopian world is the stage for a relentless thrill-ride.
