Sin #3: Present Future

Science fiction is a fascinating realm, since it allows us to speculate about our future. 2009 brought us two absorbing works of sci-fi: “Moon” and “District 9”, movies that managed to provoke and entertain even though they painted a very dark portrait of mankind (to a lesser effect, so did Cameron’s “Avatar”).

“District 9” is a clever allegory for xenophobia that manages to somehow evoke the sight of concentration camps and civil riots by giving a spin to the alien invasion genre. Instead of an extraneous threat, we realize that the real danger comes from within. As the alien Christopher returns to his planet at the end, we wonder if he’s coming back with a fleeting armada ready to obliterate the human race for its sins.

“Moon” is very different and yet equally fascinating. It starts out almost as a loving tribute to Kubrick’s “2001” and Tarkovsky’s “Solaris” (with a nod to the Soderbergh remake), but then becomes something else completely, a meditation on what makes us human through the difficult dilemma of a man working on a space station by himself. For the astronaut Sam Bell (in a fantastic performance by Sam Rockwell) it’s a shattering conclusion when he learns that he’s only got a 3 year expiration date (until he’s replaced by another hopeful, naïve clone).

It’s clear that recent science fiction has been influenced by scientist’s speculations on the energy crisis and the future that awaits us once we limit our resources (especially for underdeveloped third-world countries). A lot of recent sci-fi portrays a barren landscape, usually the result of nuclear annihilation (we got to see that template with “Termination Salvation”, a pedestrian sequel that managed to waste a potentially interesting premise).

It’s clear that contemporary cinema lacks an optimistic aspect in portraying the future and that even commercial blockbusters have a subversive undertone of uncertainty (a good example can be found in Pixar’s “Wall-E”, that managed to criticize consumerism even though you could find thousands of Wall-E toys on shopping malls across the country).

One of the best and most relevant films depicting the future is Alfonso Cuaron’s “Children of Men” which might paint the starkest of all portraits by giving us a world without children and a human race stumbling upon its own extinction.

Whether the world will face a major collapse and our lives will change radically has yet to be seen, but it’s not too late to wonder whether that scenario can be prevented.