Dystopian Literature: Dystopian Films

A harrowing journey through a near-future world of decaying cities, murderous adolescents and nightmarish technologies of punishment and crime.

The world's youngest citizen has just died at 18, and humankind is facing the likelihood of its own extinction. Set in and around a dystopian London fractious with violence and warring nationalistic sects, Children of Men follows the unexpected discovery of a lone pregnant woman and the desperate journey to deliver her to safety and restore faith for a future beyond those presently on Earth.

In the future, an oppressive government maintains control of public opinion by outlawing literature and maintaining a group of enforcers known as "firemen" to perform the necessary book burnings. This is the premise of Ray Bradbury's acclaimed science-fiction novel Fahrenheit 451, which became the source material for French director François Truffaut's English-language debut. While some liberties are taken with the description of the world, the narrative remains the same, as fireman Montag Oskar Werner begins to question the morality of his vocation. Curious about the world of books, he soon falls in love with a beautiful young member of a pro-literature underground -- and with literature itself. Critics were divided on the effectiveness of the result; some praised the unique design and eerie color cinematography by Nicolas Roeg, while others found the film's stylized approach overly distancing and attacked the central performances as unnatural. In any case, however, the film inarguably succeeds in making Truffaut's reverence for the written word abundantly clear, especially during the film's justifiably famous finale.

In a future where people stop aging at 25, but are engineered to live only one more year, having the means to buy your way out of the situation is a shot at immortal youth. Here, Will Salas finds himself accused of murder and on the run with a hostage. Together, they must bring down the corrupt system before their time runs out.

Adapted from Osamu Tezuka's 1949 manga, Metropolis is an opulently beautiful film. Evil Duke Red plans to rule the world from Ziggurat, his newly completed art deco tower. A new robot is being developed by his henchman Dr. Laughton to control all the machines in the world from Ziggurat. Japanese detective Shunsaku Ban and his nephew Kenichiarrive in Metropolis in pursuit of Laughton and are plunged into Red's plot.

In the dazzlingly futuristic Washington D.C. of 2054, murder has been eliminated. John Anderton presides over the Department of Pre-Crime, wherein three "Pre-Cogs,"--precognitive humans drifting in a flotation tank, their brain waves tapped by computers--pick up thoughts of premeditated murder and warn the cops, who swoop down and arrest the would-be perpetrators before the killings can take place. Although the Pre-Cogs are never wrong sometimes they disagree. The dissenting Pre-Cog is said to have filed a minority report. If you could outsmart the Pre-Cog system, you would have committed the perfect crime. Bureau director Lamar Burgess tries to shield Anderton from bureaucrats like Danny Witwer of the Justice Department. As the pre-crime strategy prepares to go national, Witwer seems to have doubts about its wisdom--or he is only jealous of its success?

Sheltered teens Kathy, Ruth , and Tommy all grew up at a remote English boarding school, and now they're hungry to explore the real world. Their dreams of freedom are soon stifled, however, upon learning that they are nothing more than clones created specifically for organ harvesting. Now, in addition to confronting their own mortality, all three must come to terms with a lifetime of emotions and unfulfilled longings while pondering their true purpose for being.

What if virtual reality wasn't just for fun, but was being used to imprison you? That's the dilemma that faces mild-mannered computer jockey Thomas Anderson Keanu Reeves in The Matrix. It's the year 1999, and Anderson hacker alias: Neo works in a cubicle, manning a computer and doing a little hacking on the side. It's through this latter activity that Thomas makes the acquaintance of Morpheus Laurence Fishburne, who has some interesting news for Mr. Anderson -- none of what's going on around him is real. The year is actually closer to 2199, and it seems Thomas, like most people, is a victim of The Matrix, a massive artificial intelligence system that has tapped into people's minds and created the illusion of a real world, while using their brains and bodies for energy, tossing them away like spent batteries when they're through. Morpheus, however, is convinced Neo is "The One" who can crack open The Matrix and bring his people to both physical and psychological freedom. T