[microsound] [ot] code 46 | city of the future

[graham miller <grahammiller@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

regardless of what critics say of the storyline and characters, this is
without a doubt one of the slickest, most realistic, beautifully shot,
original, coherent and cohesive, visions of the future i have ever
seen.  what blade runner is to the colour black, this is to white. blown
out, over exposed, concrete, stainless steel, neon, fluorescent
subterranean daylight.  endless atriums, kiosks, and 'have-a-nice-days.'
it's as if the world were an airport, in the palmpilot of your hand. a
flight from seattle to shanghai and back again takes less than a day and
all the while there are still camels and peasants carrying loads of
grain across the endless dessert, outcasts in the irradiated world of
the outside.

it's what happens when THX 1138 reaches the surface. it's what happens
when there are no countries left, only cities. and if location scouts
could get academy awards, this one would.

i mention this because of a microsound project a while back regarding
the city of the future sequence in the original solaris (for the record,
i think the second one is also brilliant in it's own way, but i
digress...). from what i remember the highway sequence was was simply
shot in tokyo and edited together to make us believe that this was
russia of the future. plus the sound effects...

if anything, the whole code 46 aesthetic is this simple but brilliant
idea taken to the next level.  for tarkovsky, japan of 1972 may have
been the future of russia, even with the japanese characters on signs
and advertising...

just simple devices, like recontexualizing settings, calling hong kong
baghdad or whatever, or shooting mexico city as if it's some futuristic
version of los angeles, is incredibly appealing and bathes these kinds
of imagined sci-fi worlds in a kind of realism and detail that CG or
plywood sets could never accomplish. the guggenheim becomes a shopping
mall food court... the petronas towers in kuala lumpur become condos...
and in the end, it's closer to way things will be, i think.

anyway, go see it.  the music kicks ass too:)

g.


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