Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium: To have or have not

[Lord Beria3]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/08 ... s-a13.html

Neill Blomkamp, the South African-born director (District 9, 2009), sets out certain provocative premises for his new film. By 2154, according to a title, the earth’s “wealthiest inhabitants” have “fled” to an orbiting space station, Elysium, some twenty minutes away by space shuttle. There, under sunny skies, gleaming mansions with luxuriant lawns and swimming pools prevail. Everything is light and elegant and clean. Medical science has developed equipment (Medi-Pods) that repair broken bones and cure even the most lethal diseases instantly.

The earth (whose scenes were shot in Mexico City), on the other hand, resembles a giant polluted, overcrowded slum. Its inhabitants are prevented, as undocumented “non-citizens,” from entering the paradise in the sky. They have little or no access to elementary social services such as health care. Police-state methods prevail, with armed robots controlling and brutalizing the seething, poverty-stricken population.

Max Da Costa (Matt Damon) works in a factory owned by Armadyne, the conglomerate that has built Elysium. An industrial accident, due to the company’s ruthless speed-up and drive for profits, results in his being contaminated by radiation and given five days to live. Much of the film is taken up by Max’s attempts to reach Elysium and provide himself with a cure for his condition.

Interesting Marxist analysis of the latest film Elysium which does look rather good and a powerful attack on our capitalist system.

[Oxenstierna]

I've just read a review of the film on TakiMag, you could say from the other side of the political spectrum

http://takimag.com/article/elysium_neil ... z2bz03jNv8

Haven't seen any of Blomkamp's films so I can't comment on the premise of the review that the filmmaker is pulling the wool over liberals' eyes.

However, both reviews have made me interested enough to want to see the film, even at the exorbitant prices of my local Cineworld.

[RevdTess]

I saw 'District 9' for the first time only yesterday as it happens, and as far as I can tell it's basically 'Avatar' (but set in a South-African alien slum) crossed with Cronenberg's 'The Fly'.

In other words, there's a normal guy made responsible for doing something reprehensible to an alien race, backed up by a stereotypical military guy who wants to kill 'em all. The normal guy 'goes native', actually becomes one of the alien race by some sort of transformation and then has to join the fight against the humans whose forces are being led by the xenophobic military guy.

[Tarrel]

The thing I admired about District 9 was how accurately it portrayed the State's treatment of the "underclass" - in District 9 the aliens, in pre-1994 SA, the blacks. On the face of it, bumbling and elephantine bureaucracy but backed up by sinister and ruthless force.

The bumbling and elephantine bureaucracy bit you can still see today, in the government's relationship with the inhabitants of the informal settlements and, in particular, the way they deal with the chronic complaints around lack of service provision.

Blomkamp was able to do this well by seeing things from a SA perspective. It will be interesting to see if he is able to apply allegory as effectively to a much broader, non SA specific situation.

[Tarrel]

OK, just got back from seeing Elysium this evening.

A very interesting, and quite disturbing, film that raises many unanswerable questions very familiar to PS'ers. On the surface it is an action movie, but the context and allegory are what makes it interesting

The fim is set in the year 2154, at a time when the "1%" have taken themselves off to a huge orbiting space station to carry on BAU. This thing (Elysium) has its own atmosphere, gravity, etc, as you'd expect with 22nd century tech. These people have everything, including a one-touch fix-it machine in every home that will cure every illness and disease.

Meanwhile, everyone else has to make there way as best they can down below in an over populated, polluted, resource-depleted Earth.

The central character, played by Matt Damon, is an orphan, now grown up, who has always harboured a dream to reach Elysium. A fatal dose of radiation resulting from an industrial accident concentrates his mind and he has to get to Elysium and one of the make-well machines within 5 days.

The real story of this film is the enormous gulf between the haves and have-nots. Once again, Blomkamp's South African exposure shines through.

[jonny2mad]

tarrel did you read the link that Oxenstierna posted Neill Blomkamp family fled the black racist state of new south africa, and he wasnt looking at white apartied in district 9 rather black apartied directed at people from zimbabwe Somalia and other parts of africa.

I think blomkamp is saying something different from what you think hes saying .

And when Elysium opens its doors what happens next, there are limited resources the people who used to live in mexico city now live all over the earth, they spread to elysium and turn that into mexico city .

A process we can see all over the west, the west would have a declining and more sustainable population if it wasnt for white guilt and mass immigration from the third world .



Maybe hes saying follow the rules of Elysium before its too late

[Tarrel]

And when Elysium opens its doors what happens next, there are limited resources the people who used to live in mexico city now live all over the earth, they spread to elysium and turn that into mexico city .

Yes, so maybe the real story of Elysium is; what happens if you take the privileges of the 1% and try to distribute them among the other 99%? Will that resource, enjoyed by the wealthy, actually make any material difference when spread so thinly? I guess we'll need to wait for Elysium II for that!

[jonny2mad]

Well if you have over population and mass immigration as one of the main drivers that has made the earth into a mexico city hell hole.

you would think the same thing will happen to elysium, the make well machines will just drive up population .

La used to be majority anglo now like london its turning into the third world,without third world immigration La and london would be far more sustainable . This film potrays the future and some of the present, the only thing it has is somewhere that hasnt been destroyed by these migration waves yet .

And the matt damon character the white guy still in la destroys that

[emordnilap]

what happens if you take the privileges of the 1% and try to distribute them among the other 99%? Will that resource, enjoyed by the wealthy, actually make any material difference when spread so thinly?

Probably not but that wouldn't be the point of redistribution.

[jonny2mad]

Be interesting if instead of the evil one percent you had a place set up by greens that kept a sustainable population and enviroment and things were pretty heavenly tho heavily defended , and the mexican gangsters and matt damon fight their way into that.

Would the people in the bad over crowded conditions get the same sympathy

[emordnilap]

No, the reverse: it's gonna be the happy ending in Afterlight.

[Tarrel]

Be interesting if instead of the evil one percent you had a place set up by greens that kept a sustainable population and enviroment and things were pretty heavenly tho heavily defended , and the mexican gangsters and matt damon fight their way into that.

Would the people in the bad over crowded conditions get the same sympathy

I don't see the connection. You don't have to be green in order to have compassion for your fellow man, and you don't have to have compassion for your fellow man in order to be green.

I do understand and accept that inequalities exist. Some of us are fortunate to be born in a part of the world where resources are abundant and the environment is conducive to creating the surpluses that allow for education, science, art, etc to flourish, whereas others are less fortunate.

Personally I find it morally acceptable for these inequalities to exist if the privileged are prepared to share their endowment by providing support, aid, technology transfer, knowledge, etc. this isn't about trying to eradicate the inequality, but more about leveraging the privileged position we hold. I don't find it so easy to accept if the inequalities are created, or worsened, by the exploitation of one group over another.

[Little John]

Be interesting if instead of the evil one percent you had a place set up by greens that kept a sustainable population and enviroment and things were pretty heavenly tho heavily defended , and the mexican gangsters and matt damon fight their way into that.

Would the people in the bad over crowded conditions get the same sympathy

I don't see the connection. You don't have to be green in order to have compassion for your fellow man, and you don't have to have compassion for your fellow man in order to be green.

I do understand and accept that inequalities exist. Some of us are fortunate to be born in a part of the world where resources are abundant and the environment is conducive to creating the surpluses that allow for education, science, art, etc to flourish, whereas others are less fortunate.

Personally I find it morally acceptable for these inequalities to exist if the privileged are prepared to share their endowment by providing support, aid, technology transfer, knowledge, etc. this isn't about trying to eradicate the inequality, but more about leveraging the privileged position we hold. I don't find it so easy to accept if the inequalities are created, or worsened, by the exploitation of one group over another.

There may be an inherent problem there, Tarrel, I think. Inequalities, in a world of seemingly inexhaustibly growing access to resources can be tolerated because even the less-well-off are increasing their objective wealth and well being. In other words, the equation is win/win a bit more. However, in a world of static or reducing access to resources, every profit, as an arithmetical inevitability, must be offset be an equal loss elsewhere. Or, win/lose. In the world to come, profits (the leaving of an economic transaction with more than you went in with) may only be maintained via one group exploiting another.

In a world of contracting resources, for someone to win, someone else has to lose.

[Tarrel]

I suppose what you are describing is the process of the species adapting to its new situation. So, maybe the ones left will be those most able to adapt? I think it would be rash to assume that they would be the Elysium-dwellers (or their real-world equivalent).

Maybe the real survivors will be among those immigrant hoards that J2M describes. Where does that leave the Elysium-dwellers? Food for the masses?

[jonny2mad]

The real survivors depends who wins.

if the Elysium people are strong enough they would be the survivors, but looking at the south africa example.
You have the whites who ruled and gave up power on pretty promises and little else and are now being murdered raped and tortured to death, and the black south africans now in power impose anti immigration rules against zimbabwe and somalian etc poorer africans than themselves.

If they are strong enough defending territory the territory will be theirs as long as they are strong, that they got the territory by basically lieing to idiot whites who believed in universal brotherhood nonsense doesn't matter what matters is the now have all the power, now they control the territory.

There are many lessons that the uk and the west should learn but wont in south africa, because its our future