age: 17
where: twin cities
production design | The Fifth Element (1997)
by Dan Weil
#after terminator and blade runner and robocop sci-fi decided that the future will be desaturated #muted colours tinged grey-blue and glass and dark sleek steel #(for minority report spielberg overlit every shot then bleach-bypassed the negatives #to get create a dark drained look every dystopia after has tried to copy) #amidst all that the fifth element is a shock of colour and hypersaturation and elaborate art deco flourishes #there’s fun and irreverence and silliness in every frame before you even get to the outrageous plot #but also breathtaking setpieces that are vast and bright and weird and beautiful #there is cynicism but this is not a cynical film and it refuses to show you a dark future #humans are frail and corruptible #but also adaptable and dreaming #this film understands that given enough distance we’d look absurd and incomprehensible to previous generations #and instead of trying to close that gap by plunging you into the future and explaining every electronic inch of it #it relishes that unbridgeable strangeness #our future will be alien to us #so this future is bright and wondrous and alien and overwhelmingly strange #also goofy as hell oh god i love this film it’s the most ridiculous [x]
Seriously this film is so great and the world building is wonderful. There’s a lot of really great, tiny touches - like the Corbin’s cigarette that is almost entirely filter - which show you the ways in which someone was thinking about the future.
