In our series "Have You Seen?" we discuss a movie that some of us know well and others have just now seen for the first time. Our conversation focuses on the experience of someone watching the movie for the first time today and their reaction.
This week we revisit Equilibrium, dystopian science fiction movie directed by Kurt Wimmer and starring Christian Bale, Taye Diggs and Sean Bean, about an enforcement officer in a future in which feelings and artistic expression are outlawed, and a society where its citizens are forced to take psychoactive drugs to suppress emotion.
We talk about why it has nostalgic value for some of us and what the first viewing experience is like more than 20 years later for others, we discuss the worldbuilding and whether it is too derivative of stories like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, how the movie doesn't fully develop or think through its idea of a society without emotion, and why the protagonist's journey is more compelling than we would have expected to the point of carrying the movie.
Check out the video version:
https://youtu.be/i5CrhefDEbs
