Equilibrium

Hi All,

Today I will be writing about a film I am happy to watch over and over, and this is equilibrium by Kurt Wimmer.

The film follows John Preston who is played by Christian Bale, as an enforcement officer in a future in which emotions and artistic expressions are banned and citizens take daily injections of drugs to suppress their feelings.

The story takes a turn after John accidentally misses a dose, and starts to experience emotions. After initially being such a brutal emotionless killer as an enforcement officer, John begins to moderate his actions and questions the morality of his job, whilst trying to remain undetected by the suspicious society in which he lives, as showing an ounce of emotion would get him caught, with all his actions being under constant surveillance.

John eventually joins and begins to assist the resistance movement that he initially intended to destroy, whilst using the advanced martial art skills he was taught as an enforcement officer.

The concept of this film reminds me of 1984 by George Orwell in which people are expected to behave in certain way based on how they have been educated, but the difference in this society is that they are assisted by a drug which helps them behave in the manner that is required by the reigning regime. The use of such a drug is not very hard to imagine with modern anti-depressants that help to control emotions.

The key question the movie asks is whether human beings would be better off without emotions, as so many wrong decisions are made based on emotions, and the fact that there has never been global peace in all human history supports this idea.

But the film also highlights that as much as there are negative emotions, there are also plenty of positive emotions that drive good actions from human beings, and without the positive emotions that we feel, then life would pretty much becomes pointless.

Thanks for reading, any feedback is appreciated.

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