When I began
bemoaning my utter disappointment upon watching Lucy, I was met with loud
protests from my male friends. I was amused by their argument : “Did you watch
it on a small screen? Well that would be it then. It’s an action film, you’re
supposed to watch it in cinema!”. I do realize that action as a genre is
supposed to be heavily visual. You know, don’t ask too many questions. Enjoy
the spectacular fight scenes and the big explosions. OK fair enough, the genre
has its fans, and I am just as capable of appreciating a good explosion as the
next man. But when putting Lucy into this context, two questions spring to
mind. Firstly, since when have “pretty action sequences” been a legitimate
saving grace if the rest of a film has gone awry? Secondly, my main point would
be that Lucy is actually trying to be more than that. It’s just… You know…
Failing.
The story
of Lucy is told quickly enough. “Baddies” have discovered a new drug. Oh the
kids are going to love it! It is the synthetic form of a hormone produced naturally
by pregnant women and induces growth. Lucy is the typical “innocent stander by”
roped into a dastardly situation. She, along with a few other randoms, are
chosen by what looks suspiciously like the Yakuza (but we are in Taipei so
possibly not) to be the couriers of this drug to European capitals. The thing
is, Lucy’s trip goes horribly wrong, the packet she is carrying in her abdomen
bursts and the drug starts seeping into her body, which in turn allows her to
unlock the “unused” parts of her brain. This… Well… It has unexpected results…
Now, here’s
my argument as to Lucy trying to be more than just an action movie. I mean,
before I get into it let me underline this, the action sequences are nothing
short of stunning. I am not; as you may know by now, the biggest fan of one
single hero steamrolling every single opponent without so much as breaking a
sweat but… You know. Let’s not get lost in details. It’s a genre, and in its
own way its very well done – it’s just not to my own personal taste. But come on. This is Luc Besson we are talking
about. Since when has he been into making “just” action films?
From pretty
much the get-go we are surrounded by hints that the film is trying to ground
itself very firmly in science. The action in the film interspersed with what
appear to be stock images from a David Attenborough documentary that “cleverly”
parallel the action. You know, we cut from Lucy just before she is attacked in
some way to a group of deer grazing in the Savannah, then she is attacked and
we see a lion attacking the group of deer. That kind of thing. Rather too much of it at that – but ok, you have to be
blind to see what the film is trying to do, we are grounding ourselves in
natural history, disenchantment of the world and all that jazz, humans are
animals, predators in fact, and we should not “separate” ourselves from it by
pretending any “mystic” side. Okey dokey. Then we get a looong explanation of
the whole “humans only a limited percentage of their brain… Let’s imagine what
would happen if we could use it all” theory. The saving grace of the whole “lecture”
(both as a filmic device and in the actual storyline) is that it is delivered
by Morgan Freeman. By that time, of course Lucy is now rampaging around the
globe, able to control electronic devices from a distance (I’m still not
exactly sure how that conversation between her and the doctor from Taipei to
Paris actually worked on a technical level but ok, moving on) and her aim is to
get to the Professor so she can pass on the “information” she has gained to the
next generation just like any other mammal. OK HERE COME THE SPOILERS. Then she
spectacularly kills all the baddies, she reaches 100% brain capacity, this
makes her immune to the concepts of space and time and we finally see that she
is tantamount to becoming God, as she sends a last message to the cop who has
rather ineffectually being “assisting her” (he at least has the good grace to
point out that he is not being much help) “I am everywhere”. Yeah, so she
becomes God. It’s a wonderful atheist / humanist parable of how God is a
construct of our own minds and if humans would only unleash their own
capabilities they would be the only God they would ever need… There is even a
slightly Nietschean rant in the film about how men limit themselves from realizing
their true potential etc , just in case you missed the actual point of the film.
To make a
complete aside for two seconds, in an age where we are seriously debating
uploading our consciousness onto computers this is definitely a matter to be
discussed. I mean the concept isn’t even new, think of Ghost in the Shell,
think of Neon Genesis Evangelion – the Japanese, true to form, saw this coming
20 years ago. My point is that Lucy tries to clunk a very complex ontological
concept onto a very flashy action movie packed with clichés and add it weight
with a mock- David Attenborough documentary. Oh and to get this whole thing
across in 80 minutes. Err… Yeah.
And if you
thought that our final “God” is a woman is some kind of saving grace, think
again. Lucy is pretty much the only speaking female part in the film (her
flatmate hardly counts, she is only on for 2 minutes and has about 20 lines,
almost all, incidentally about her date the previous night so yeah. It barely
passes the Bechdel test because Lucy ends up giving her some advice about her
health – but does it count if the other party doesn’t respond? Weigh in here
someone… ). We barely get to know her anyway, apart from one conversation with her mother and the mention of exams, so she is some form of student... So yeah, she is the only woman literally surrounded by male
gangsters, academics and police officers and she can only “outsmart” them by
becoming less and less human and decidedly less feminine. So her whole
empowerment actually amounts to beautiful blonde beating up a bunch of guys
which, I believe, is considered a fun night out in some circles…
We have had quite a few ones about
computer-human hybrids and how we as humans would cope with consciousness levels amped up infinitely, haven’t we? There
are clues in this film that it is possibly meant as tongue in cheek, ranging
from the very fact that Morgan Freeman’s iconic voice is used to lecture us to
the fact that the secrets of the universe actually end up on a USB stick… I
dunno, maybe I’m taking this a tad too seriously… But… I mean lay aside the
pretty action sequences… You do see what I mean, don’t you? Go on… I know you
do…
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