I saw The Road and It Comes At Night pretty quickly after each other. Both incredibly disturbing in how possible and real it all is. Any other films that portray the incoming environmental collapse and/or societal decay?
Children of Men
It's not exactly about an eco disaster but an impending doom just like it and how people would handle it in our capitalist world. Mass unemployment, crime and violence, heavy police state, feeling surreal going to work a normal job like the world isn't ending etc.
Children of Men honestly is one of the best movies of the 21st century.
"This stork is delicious"
Love the youngest person in the world is a celebrity. Culture industry continues to thrive!
Not so fun fact, pregnancies decrease due to pollution and warm weather, so Global Warming/Climate Change will bring down birth rates generally.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/18/climate-change-air-pollution-investigation-study
I don't buy the reasoning that people aren't having kids because they're broke. Poor people have way more kids than bougies. Honestly it seems like the poorer you get the more kids you have.
more complicated than that, going from a middle class upbringing into being poor is probably more likely to stop you having kids than just being poor.
this is the most correct answer.
fuck, I need to rewatch this movie.
I rewatch it every couple years, it's so fucking good. Not only is the story good, it's well made. The ridiculously long single shot scene in the refugee camp was intense.
tag yourself
The lack of an effective disciplinary system has not, to say the least, been compensated for by an increase in student self-motivation. Students are aware that if they don't attend for weeks on end, and/or if they don't produce any work, they will not face any meaningful sanction. They typically respond to this freedom not by pursuing projects but by falling into hedonic (or anhedonic) lassitude: the soft narcosis, the comfort food oblivion of Playstation, all-night TV and marijuana.
haha dude. The ultimate distillation of why Jerry Seinfeld is irreverent post Reaganism. I loved Roger Ebert, (who quotes Marx in the beginning of his review) while also saying "Most of the humor is verbal, and tends toward the gently ironic rather than the hilarious." I distinctly remember sitting in a silent but full theatre. It was just so bizarre.
Politically though? I dig it trying to give profit to labourers, but they follow it up with 'but they're bees, and they intrinsically need to work otherwise they'd be aimless'. Thanks, millionaire Jerry Seinfeld. Not everyone works for fun.
Sorry to Bother You. Not all of it is realistic in a strict sense, but I feel like it's in tune with the present state of things in a way that most other dystopian movies are not.
The Platform and Snowpiercer for films (Parasite also if you haven’t seen it yet).
I know you probably here this a lot from libs, but I think at least the first season of the Handmaids Tale is worth watching.
I also think Jordan Peele’s Us is about class traitors and solidarity but it’s not very explicit in its message.
Yeah, Us is very ambiguous. Unfortunately I think it ultimately makes fun of this mentality as the tethered are all sheltered and therefore while their goal is showy and ambitious, it's ultimately not that impactful. Would love a sequel. What happens from there?!
Handmaid's Tale is terrific IMO, the first two seasons kind of revel in the misery, but the third season allows the characters to realise resistance is the only possible course of action. It gets violent haha
Although weirdly Handmaid's Tale is a more positive vision of our future. The Theocratic fascists take over, but they 'resolve' climate change. I don't see Mike Pence adjacents doing jackshit.
I think Brazil is one of the best dystopian movies I've ever seen.
Damn, I saw it for the first time about a month ago, I was really disappointed. I was very frustrated that it indulged in the aesthetics of fascism without really commenting on how it happened or how it currently functions. So many missed opportunities.
Word, it's been over a decade since I last watched it, but I remember it having a big impact on me at that time. I appreciate your take and might try to rewatch soon with that in mind.
I'll plug my Letterboxd review , which details why I didn't really vibe with it.
Essentially, it dislikes fascism as a concept (wow controversial take) focusing mainly on red tape and bureaucracy. Especially irrelevant now, thanks to bumbling autocrats who dgaf if their i's are dotted.
seems like it has that liberal taint from how hard Orwell's 1984 was pushed as an anticommunist piece
I really like the amibiguity around the "terrorists", where it's never clear if there's actual terrorism or if everything is so decayed and run down that the infrastructure just keeps exploding and they blame fictive terrorists to avoid doing anything about it.
V for Vendetta, kind of — the setting is very believable even if the comic book aspects are still quite comic book. The Wachowskis did a great job updating the graphic novel (from the 80s) for the trajectory we've been on post-9/11 so most of the specific political elements really hold up even though it's from 2007
plus buzzcut natalie portman hot
If I recall correctly the back story is that a pandemic accelerated internal divisions in the US causing a new civil war including mass use of chemical weapons
oh damn, I forgot about that part.
V for vendetta has its moments and I was all about that movie in my twenties....but as I've gotten older and arguably wiser I agree with Alan Moore: The Wachowskies replaced his far more poigniant dichotomy of Fascism and Anarchism with Fascism and Liberal Democracy....which is a lot less interesting.
I suppose in 2005 the world was not ready for such a discussion in the mainstream....but it makes the film feel more dated then ever in the Bush era whilst the graphic novel still offers insight LONG past the era of Thatcher.
Yeah, it's terrific. Very on the nose, but in the age where huge loud blaring fascist runs America, I think some people need to be hit over the head.
Valerie's story makes it one of my favorite movies of all time. I have especially fond associations about that in particular cause my first time seeing it was because my older brother had me watch it with him shortly after I came out to him waaaay back in the day. So I've got that super nice memory on top of it already being a fantastic film :)
Plus when the vague but definitely shitty future stresses me out too much, telling myself "For three years i had roses and apologised to no one" always centers me.
And it's about the devastation following an event that removes 2 percent of the world's population, which is something I think about whenever people frame a 2% mortality rate from Covid as an acceptable loss.
Obligatory warning that the first season is VERY uneven, and the show doesn't really blossom until season two.
Terry Gilliam's Brazil is honestly seeming like the most likely outcome for us in the first world if we aren't all ground into hamburger to fuel Musk's escape rocket first.
Probably not what you're looking for, but First Reformed portrays the sense of impending doom quite well as well as our powerlessness to stop the destructive forces causing it.
I thought the ending wasn't quite deserved. I was right on board with him becoming a martyr. Then again Amanda Seyfried is very pretty and would be a nice and calming presence as the world decays.
Wall E - We literally give up on Earth and leave
Children of Men - Already mentioned on here but it really is such a good depiction of how our society would collapse
Max Max series - A leader telling people not to get addicted to water sounds in line with our current society
The first part of Interstellar does a decent job depicting society where people still go to watch baseball even with natural disasters happening at any moment
Cowboy Bebop - Yes this is weeb and technically a series, but there is a film too. Its optimistic enough to believe we manage to get off Earth, but realistic enough to show the Earth is fucked and capitalism still reigns supreme. No lessons were learned from destroying the planet.
Dredd - Shows how fascist police operate
I was gonna say The Road for the case of post climate disaster but you already got there :)
It is so so brutal. An added kicker is that water is plentiful. You can't die quickly of thirst, it has to be of hunger. God it was an unbelievably awful vision of the future.
Until we're fighting over half full water bottles, I'll pretend it hasn't arrived yet.
To quote the sacred chapo text
“The apocalypse is already here, you just don’t live there yet”
