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Libria is an Orwellian world where emotions have become illegal. No one is happy or sad, angry or frightened. Art, music and literature are frowned upon as causes of emotions, and anyone found reading or enjoying a painting is called a ‘sense offender’ and suffers a terrible death. Libria is overseen by ‘Father’ (played by the excellent Sean Pertwee), who, while the people go about their daily business, spouts rhetoric on the danger of emotions and shows the results of anger, greed, jealousy and spite in films of Hitler and the Hiroshima bomb. Twice a day the inhabitants of Libria have to take Prozium II (a clear reference to Prozac), which protects them from sense offences. The penalty for a sense offence is incineration without trial. Young children are used as spies who point out people on the street who dare to smile. People spend a lot of time trying to trip each other up, asking questions like ‘how do you feel about that?’ John Preston (Christian Bale) is a ‘Cleric’, a sort of police officer, whose job it is to bring sense offenders to book. He is almost empathic in his ability to sense other people’s emotions. His own wife had been incinerated four years previously for a sense offence, though he did not report her, which raises questions. It is not giving anything away to reveal that her offence was to be in love with her husband, which is shown in flashback. When Preston has to kill his partner (Sean Bean in a role that’s brief, even by his standards) for sense offences and then fails to take his Prozium II, he is forced to question to the justification of denying emotions. This is further complicated when he becomes attracted to Mary O’Brian (Emily Watson), a sense offender due to be incinerated. Though its tagline suggests yet another shoot ‘em up martial arts type film, Equilibrium is far more intelligent than that. Shot in monochrome shades, Libria is a world without colour. Clothes are dull grey or black, as are buildings and their contents. Even beds are functional with nothing luxurious that might incite emotion. Homes are minimalist, and Preston’s children have no toys or other items that might stimulate them. Only when entering the Netherworld, where sense offenders hide, does colour creep through. In a nice analogy, a small bottle of perfume owned by Mary O’Brian, and carried by Preston to remember her by, resembles the small phial used to hold the Prozium II, yet it is made clear that the smell of the perfume incites emotions that the Prozium II suppresses. You know Preston is really a good guy when he saves a puppy, yet it’s done in a non-sentimental way, with much humour. There is something of the Keanu Reeves about Christian Bale with his expressionless face, but he is a better actor, and has a good supporting cast, including Taye Diggs, Angus McFeyden and Emily Watson. It’s fair to say this film owes much to films like The Matrix. A scene where Preston shoots his way through the lobby of a large building resembles a similar scene in the first Matrix film, as does the martial art involving guns that is used throughout the film. There are a couple of things that didn’t quite make sense to me. Taye Diggs, as Preston’s new partner, spends a lot of the film smiling, when he isn’t supposed to, so why doesn’t Preston report him? It’s actually a clue to something we learn later, but it was inconsistent for him to smile in front of Preston when he knew that he might be reported. The other inconsistency is the existence of Preston’s children. How were they conceived? Sex involves emotions, even if that emotion is only lust, yet as all emotions are illegal, how could Preston and his wife have sex without being accused of sense offences? How did they decide to marry each other in the first place? It’s probably not important, but it bugged me that such an intelligent film failed to address these questions.
Despite those little quibbles, this is a good, thought-provoking film that works on lots of levels, philosophical and physical.
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| EQUILIBRIUM (2003) (Dir: Kurt Wimmer) Reviewed by: Sally Quilford |
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