2005-06-28 - 9:41 a.m.
Zombiemancipation!
We went and saw "Land of The Dead" last night. I recommend it highly - it's nice and jumpy, and if you see it in a near-empty theater, you can mutter things to each other, like : "There's Tom Savini! Good old Tom!". Spoilers ahead - you'd better stop reading if you don't like knowing what happens before you see the movie. ...Though the plot is so straightforward that you're really not going to be particularly spoiled for the movie even if you do read this; it's pretty obvious from the get-go who's going to survive, who's good, who's bad, and who's going to turn into a zombie and eat his boss. Despite (or maybe because of) the obvious plot layout, the movie is a classic of the zombie genre, and picks up rather nicely on the sympathy for the zombies that started in "Day of the Dead" (don't remember that? Go rent it. It's not *terribly* good, but it's different). While you're not really rooting for them by the end, you're at least amused and sympathetic to their reactions. Nice FX, by the way. I especially liked the delicate touch of the receding nose cartilage on many of the zombies. Even though they seemed to turn greenish-grey and slightly rotted a little too quickly in some cases, the overall effect was nice, and led us into a discussion of whether the zombies would keep going forever, or whether they'd eventually rot into their component parts (I voted for parts, then got this great mental image of a skull hopping along the road, gnashing its teeth). The cinematography and lighting are excellent; most of the movie seems to take place at night, which makes everything nicely atmospheric, and some of the zombie shots are just *poetry*. The main part of the movie (spoilers really start here) focuses on the zombies trying to get to the protected city, but a heavily-handled subplot detailed the classic "future-shock" movie dichotomy of the rich people in the fancy tower building living it up while most people made do with scraps in the streets outside. For some reason, the people living on the streets were living like homeless people, rather than actually moving into the myriad buildings standing vacant everywhere. I guess it's hard to show the poor but brave common man ekeing it out on the streets if they're all separated out into apartments, or something. Anyway, the whole rich people living it up by trampling over the backs of the poor idea was *completely* overemphasized by showing rich people selfishly shopping, eating fancy food, and basically ignoring the fact that there were people who needed a drastic improvement of living conditions right outside. Naturally, the zombies make straight for them, and a good time is had by all (of the undead). The bad guy, of course, is in charge of everything - who gets to live in the tower, the nasty-ass street entertainment, the supplies, and the military, and controls it all with a nasty nose-picking fist, so you just *know* he's going to get it. And he does, but I wasn't as interested in that as I was with all the privileged people living in the tower pretending that the world wasn't infested with stinky zombies - I felt a frisson of (director-intended) pleasure as they all got what they so obviously deserved, but Bob pointed out later that really, why were they so bad? His feeling was that if you built a bomb-shelter, you wouldn't invite everyone in - you couldn't. And we live in one of the richest countries on earth, and yet we don't house and take care of our homeless people (who look remarkably like the street people in the movie, with the added advantage of smell-o-vision). I realized that I was standing on a rapidly crumbling little island of moral superiority - here I was, identifying with the common man, where I actually live my life like one of the privileged tower people. We all do - we have nice homes, we have nice stuff, we have the money to buy any neccessity and a load of luxuries... I hear the "but!" in my own head, thank you; no need to fill my guestbook with justifications. It's just interesting that we are clearly meant to identify with the people who are poor - and I suppose we'd all like to think that if a world-wide zombie plague *did* break out, that we'd be down in the trenches, helping out, sharing, making sure everyone got a fair share of what's left. That's certainly what we're taught to think, but would we? Wouldn't you jump at the chance for better living conditions if you could swing them? Better conditions means more chance of survival (unless a socialist movie director is in charge of what happens to you, of course), and every living thing is programmed for survival first. Where do you draw the line? You can't stand on a street corner and hand out your money - it's not enough, and anyway, some asshole would knock you down and take all of it fairly quickly, depending on what part of town you choose for your act of selfless philanthropy. You can't shut your eyes entirely to the fact that a significant portion of the world's population lives in the most appalling conditions, but you, personally, are not responsible for their living conditions, and you, personally, really can't do that much to help, to be honest. The survival instinct turns us all into hypocrites. Sometimes we manage to overcome it for a while, and we've all been trained to give money to needy people in some form or another, but ultimately, I'd rather have a nice pizza than send that pizza money to the Christian Children's Fund (I have other reasons than the pizza to not send my money there, but they were the first charity that came to mind). (Personally, I'm big on The Nature Conservancy.) Wouldn't you rather have that dulce de leche frappuccino from S-Bux than send the cost of that drink to the Red Cross? It sounds horrible put that way (and that way of stating things is a classic tool of manipulation), but we each make that decision all the time. I don't have a point to this; it was just interesting to think about. Most of us live in the tower, but it's *okay*. Practicality demands that I not sell all my possessions and join the Peace Corps, but compassion demands that I give my spare change to the homeless guys I see on the street. In the end, we *aren't* making selfish (read: bad) choices just because we want to live comfortably; we want *everyone* to be able to reach this standard of living, and we can't acheive that if we drop our own standards so we match the poorest of the poor (that's the basic idea behind communism; the lowest common denominator, not the highest, dictates the living conditions for the masses, but even the communist leaders couldn't resist feathering their own nests). Given the chance, *everyone* wants to live like us - assuming we let them join the global marketplace, they'll have that chance, and the Tower might someday be big enough for everyone that wants a part of it. Then, hopefully, when the zombies come, we'll be aware enough of everyone's needs to avoid being slaughtered like clueless assholes. Heck, maybe even the zombies are only attacking because they want a piece of the good life. A nice, fresh, *meaty* chunk. Heh.
Dorsal - Ventral
Funnier than me: James Lileks disclaimer!
all words copyright Laura Mellin 2000-2005
Diarist.net!
Designed by Gen
|