Gattaca film discussion

Gattaca often reminded me of the feel and quality of mid-90's movies that I used to watch as a kid. It has a slickness and a sentimentality to it that movies from that time had; I don't know if they do anymore. I don't mean it in a nostalgic way; there's too many reasons to be critical of the ideology of films. Like: why does the future the film is supposed to be showing look and feel like wealthy 1950's post-war U.S.A.? It's sci-fi but I'm not sure it's dystopian. The relegation of Ethan Hawke's character Vincent to a life that is relatively pre-determined because of his genetic 'inferiority' is more like a variation on themes that are a constant in the world, e.g. the unfairness of privilege.

The film itself was much more slow paced than most of the other films we have watched so far; much more conversational and quiet. Sometimes it did feel overly sentimental, like in the beginning family scenes; and the score often seemed over the top; in that part at least. Which made it seem almost like Elizabethan sci-fi. Hawke often narrates the film in voice-over. There were some good lines in parts of the film, like "genetic identity becomes a valuable commodity", and "you can go anywhere with this guy's double-helix under your arm". In a way, it seems that in Gattaca genetics takes the place of money or privilege. The In-Valids are subject to scorn and abuse from the genetically superior; the police officer had to bear what was being yelled at him by Jerome in his wheelchair, just because Jerome had the power to say whatever he wanted with impunity. Like other, or all, dystopian or sci-fi films, privilege and power were a dominant theme in Gattaca.

In the essay "Dystopia and Histories", the authors "identify a deeper and more totalizing agenda in the dystopian form insofar as the text is built around the construction of a narrative of the hegemonic order and a counter-narrative of resistance". Gattaca does do this, though is it really dystopian, I don't know. Wikipedia calls the film "biopunk", which may be more accurate that dystopian. Many people will never reach the top echelons of society because of their genetic makeup, but the great majority of people never do in this world too; so the film doesn't really veer in the dystopian direction that much, in ways that THX-1138 or 1984 do. Gattaca does have that mixture that’s a kind of 'critical utopia', where apparently, at least for a small minority, genetic engineering has reached the point where a person can grow to be some kind of Ubermensch. But the film while showing the unfairness of this ‘hegemonic order’ is a ‘counter-narrative of resistance’, in how Vincent overcomes this apparently non-circumventable system based on genetic predisposition, and finally achieves his dream.

There were parts of the film that did have poignancy. In how people like the doctor and Irene conspire to help Vincent fulfill his dream, that seemed to say people often are very good even in the face of hegemonic systems of oppression or exclusion, and find ways to circumvent unjust policies or world-views. Irene could have hated Vincent for impersonating someone he wasn't, or could have had some autonomous response of disgust that she had made love to a person who is, as an In-Valid, somehow less fully human than her. The doctor could have turned Vincent in at the last moment, or even anytime; but he had known all along somehow that Vincent wasn’t Jerome, but apparently admired Vincent for doing what he was doing because he had hopes for his own son. And I guess in these ways the film shows that even in degrading systems that can corrupt or unjustifiably oppress people, there’s an urge for solidarity and kindness.