Film Discussion Entry - Week 5

The Truman Show was a film starring Jim Carrey. If you quickly scan through the previous blog post, you will understand that The Truman Show was a TV show broadcasting Truman's life to millions of worldwide viewers. From before he was born, Truman was always the focus of this surprisingly oppressive upside down society. The film helps us, the audience, understand that Truman was the first baby owned by a corporation. The world he grew up in, called Seahaven, was a manufactured dome. Thus, Truman never left Seahaven. His life/TV show went on for more than 10,000 days before he began to realize that weird occurrences were happening in his life, which I guess could be characterized as plot twists. One interesting example was how his wife advertised the cocoa. This kind of gave the idea that an endorsement must have been signed between the television show and the cocoa company. Another crazy occurrence was when he thought he saw his father dressed as a homeless man - his father passed away in a fishing storm accident - however he was forced away onto a bus before they could speak.
These weird instances began a period in Truman's life where he started to question everything and everyone around him. At some point, Truman even tries to leave Seahaven, only to find out that seemingly every possible way to escape the town would not work; the bus broke down, all flights were booked for a month, and even a nuclear radiation scare.
Truman is later able to escape his house, causing the director of the show to temporarily suspend transmission of the previously continuous sequence that was Truman's life. Truman conquers his fear of water and sails to the end of the dome and the front of his boat crashes into the painted background. He sees a flight of stairs and a door marked Exit. Before he walks through, he has a long conversation with the director of The Truman Show, who seemed to 'come to' Truman as though he was a prophet making the director look like Truman's god. Truman decides to leave the dome, and enter the world in which we live in.
An interesting aspect of that scene: To Truman, this was a huge life changing experience. Walking through that door was a big moment in his life, since it took rid of all the things he ever experienced in Seahaven and gave him a chance to experience everything in a new sense. A way to start clean, free to roam the world as he pleases and even visit Fiji! (Fiji water is amazing!!)
However, on the contrary, The Truman Show exemplified simply a TV show to the world, and once he walks through the Exit door, meaning the show is over, people simply tune to a different channel as though nothing really happened to them, which seems to be prevalent.
Lastly, this film ends similarly to Children of Men, since it gives the idea that the film's plot has stopped rather than ended, meaning we never find out how Truman's life faired once he entered the real world.
(Pictured below: Truman on top of the stairs at the edge of the dome)

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In a society where genetic makeup controls it's inhabitants social classes, Gattaca focuses on Vincent, a man who by his societies standards, would be considered genetically inferior. This society deemed 'valids' - people with great makeup - a chance to work in great fields, while 'invalids' had to resort to lower class jobs. When Vincent was born, the audience was able to understand that his estimated life expectancy was just over 30 years; he also had an extremely high probability of various diseases, thus contributing to his inferior genetic makeup, deeming him an in-valid (pictured above).
When they were children, Vincent and his brother Anton used to swim far out until one of them would 'chicken out' and swim back to shore, thus calling this game chicken.
Vincent always had a dream to go to space, but one day figured his dream wouldn't be possible because of the harsh oppressive ways his society called for. However, he later meets a former swimmer named Jerome Morrow. Jerome was in a wheelchair, and decided to give Vincent the chance to be a valid. By using Jerome's urine, blood and hair, Vincent is able to pose as Jerome and get a chance to go to space, fulfilling his lifelong dream. We later find out that Jerome was not drunk when he was struck by a car, thus causing his paralyzation. He rather threw himself before a car as an attempt at suicide due to the fact he was the runner-up in a swim competition.
Less than a week before Vincent's proposed launch date, an important director is killed in the office. Vincent, who's eyelash led a detective to unravel that he is the sole suspect, is able to evade the detection of the detective searching for him. Meanwhile, Vincent begins to spend more time with a girl named Irene, a valid who works closely with him. He also learns that the detective put on the case happens to be his brother Anton. Vincent finds out that Anton knows of his fraudulent activity, and Anton warns him he could be dealing with serious consequences. After arguing, they play one last game of chicken, resulting in Vincent saving Anton. He then is able to use the stars to tell which way was the correct way back to shore.
Vincent bids farewell to Irene and Jerome, and is preparing to go on the spaceship, but he is forced to take one last urine test. However, he does not have any of Jerome's samples. The man in charge of the urine sample, Lamar, finds out that Vincent was an in-valid but let him board the ship anyways because Vincent served as a role model for Lamar's son. Vincent gets on the ship and reads the letter Jerome gave him.
Meanwhile, a powerful scene is endured as Vincent's spaceship launches, while Jerome burns himself to death with his swimming medal.
Pictured below: (Jerome before his death)