The movie opens with fear. Check and
mate. If you want misunderstanding, mis-communication and extreme
behavior, use fear. Then we see the fly on the wall. The jungian
archetype of the unconscious, just below the surface, everyone
projecting their shadow on their neighbor, listening to them as a fly
on the wall to find the place to project their own iniquities, and
thereby bolster their own self-righteous pride, just as their
Big-Brother government does to them. The person to whom this shadow
is projected to upon in the movie is Sam Lowry. Apparently he has
been having prescient dreams about his female soul-mate, Jill Layton.
Where the male and female archetypes need to be disambiguated,
removing any mystery from their roles in society, any conflict in the
official role of male female is immediately ferreted out through the
collective unconscious of the masses, and is actively programmed
subliminally into the minds of the populace through mind control in
the ubiquitous TV programming to mete this metaphysical “here's
looking at you kid” effect. The only terrorist (besides the State's
real terrorism) in the movie, is Sam, for his dreams of love, a
passion beyond control of the master brainwashers. The levers of
state actually bring these two together, which for the rest of the
movie the state seeks to clean the slate of this off-script love
affair. The fantasy simulacra is the only thing important, and the
main folly is emotional concern for your fellow man, which would
otherwise effectively turn the tables on the power of the noxious and
arrogant government's avarice. All the stupid tubes and ducts are the
feminization of society, helping central planning have bestial
domination over needless dross society. The Deniro, Heat Engineer,
Tuttle, is wanted, whose only crime is being a free lance worker,
outside of the Government patronized Central Services union, and
mistakenly executed for by Buttle. The Union wants Tuttle, the
backdoor lover, dead, and, working hand-in-hand with the State, seek
to monopolize their agency goods and services. Competition is the
death knell for the greedy corporatist state, and sets the stage for
everything else in the movie. Sam's narcissistic mother, as the evil
genius elitist controlling everything (watch restaurant bombing scene
closely), helps him get captured through her feared power, in the
strangest of jealousy twists, neatly packaged into the Hamlet-like
power schemes of the fake society. The state/religious theme is
ubiquitous through the Christmastime setting: The Buttle mother
talking to her daughter about Santa coming down the chimney, enter
the militarized police to play Santa-Satan; Jill being the present to
Sam in the end, enter the militarized police to play Santa-Satan.
Sams happiness is going to be sacrificed, so the phony God state can
continue, and he is morphed back into the fly of society, a chemical
liver spot of his mother, in the re-birth of the evil saviour of
youthful plastic surgery. Jill, a rival to the societal collectivism
of a false idol of easily willed over childhood, is the existential
letter change of fate. Having killed Jill twice, once on paper and
once defending her, Sam smiles in the end because he is alive and
driven insane as the central protagonist in the dystopian play, and
Jill is in his mind, as in his dreams, the driver. His tiny mote of
irresponsibility to austere state motives cost him his sanity. But
hey, at least he paid his debt. It is all funny, because it's mostly
true. Naiiiled it!
Notes: The ending sequence, not in the
movie clip, is in french. Seeing the hero go insane is too much for
the tender sensibilities of American audiences.
They skipped a scene involving a
decomposed corpse in the movie here. It is important in the movie as
a foil to the lack of the culture coming to terms with death and
renewal of finding a purpose and worth of life for oneself. (Sam
later slays himself, losing his wings and becoming the hero
antagonist to his exalted place in the society.) Interesting edit,
fortunately I caught the life should be worth losing redaction for
you.
