Gattaca
I found Gattaca an intense and beautiful film. Taking place in the near future, society has the ability to make genetic modifications to babies in the womb. Genetic testing has reached an Orwellian level. A genetic testing facility has a walk-up window, like a bank teller, where people can drop off an eyelash and pick up a detailed genetic report on the "donor's" DNA. I put the word donor in quotation marks because in this hypothetical future anyone can find out all about your genetic make-up without your consent -- they need only the smallest sample and need not give any information about how they obtained it. Your genes have the same legal status as the garbage you throw away.
Ethan Hawke portrays "Vincent," an ordinary guy whose parents eschewed genetic modification during his gestation but later decided to do the full modification service for his younger brother. Vincent grows up marked as "in-valid" or genetically inferior and experiences life very differently than his brother. The pre-determined low expectations and limited opportunities available to Vincent mirror the ethnic and class prejudices we observe in the present but rendered more simplistically, with a starkly delineated genetically class-based order, technologically imposed and legally enforced. The clearness and simplicity of the situation gives the movie the look and feel of a fable and it works well taken as such.
The story involves Vincent's efforts to infiltrate the genetic elite in order to pursue his dreams of space travel. Uma Thurman plays Irene, a member of this elite, with whom Vincent falls in love and an early-in-his-career Jude Law portrays the crippled man who provides the genetic samples needed for Vincent to "pass" for elite in the Gattaca Corporation offices. The love story takes center stage but watch Ernest Borgnine's performance carefully. You will see lessons in subversion. As the supervisor of the janitorial staff in Gattaca Corp he brazenly commits "illegal" acts: obstruction of a police investigation and destroying evidence to name only two. When caught red-handed destroying evidence he fends off suspicion by playing the dumb-ass janitor card. The police let him go.
This brings up the most rewarding part of watching Gattaca: the lack of any violence in the process of rebellion. Small acts of defiance or non-violent obstruction have a cumulative effect. Neither Vincent nor the janitor act alone. Vincent requires at least compliance in secrecy from Irene, a tricky proposition given the issues of trust and dishonesty inherent in the initial stage of their relationship. And besides Vincent's accomplice another character dumps the rules and acts decisively in Vincent's favor at a critical moment. (But I always avoid spoilers and therefore must stay vague about the ending). These characters simply make a choice. The system to keep Vincent "in his place" fails to function because too many people refuse to follow its rules.
I realize that great momentous "movements" capture people's imaginations. Many people see activism as something highly visible and done on a large scale. But there exists another, more subtle kind, one that does not rely on charismatic leaders or mass action. Not to denigrate the usefulness or meaningfulness of mass action, but you can see in Gattaca an example of everyday actions by ordinary people that also can lead to far reaching change. Individuals taking even small actions in the course of their day to day lives matter, and can make a difference. What is the "moral" to the "fable?" When enough people say to themselves: "this is nuts, I'm not following these cockamamie rules anymore," then anything can happen.
