High Rise

High Rise by J.G. Ballard (1975)

It has been suggested that J.G. Ballard was beyond psychological help. High Rise is an example of this reaction, a story of conditions that spiral out of control into some colossal external force which creates situations that no rational person would ever consider possible.

In terms of the film: The first thought I had while reading the book, was how interesting this story would be in terms of 21st century consumer technology, with our constant surroundings of multiple screens which present new challenges in interpersonal interaction. Given the emphasis on batteries to power the first generation of portable devices - tape recorders, cameras, etc- in the absence of functional municipal power, and the alluded transformation into cybernetic lifeforms (bio-robots), the current human state of always-wired-wirelessly only enhances Ballards original thought.  Therefore, I was quite disappointed that the film chose to keep the setting in the 1970s. Not only is the entire 1970s aesthetic something we don't ever need to revisit, the 70s view of excess and tuned-out reality, exemplified in orgiastic sex events, detracts from the core story in my view. Conversely  there is an opposition to the free-love counterculture with A Clockwork Orange feel and its 70s appreciation for violent anarchy and rejection of the system.  Additionally, although Ballard's writing contained a strong surrealist vision, this is cinematically presented in a psychedelic approach which makes the film overly strange and hard to follow. I'm not sure what someone who had not read the book would think of the film, although looking at Amazon reviews it seems pretty clear. The film simply doesn't present the story clearly. Unsurprisingly, it simplifies the story, but it also reduces the horrific elements to a tamer, more acceptable representation. As the novel reaches its most intense point, Laing cannot even descend the building because of the stench of a pool filled with rotting corpses, (reduced in the film to a far less graphic scene showing the few causalities being laid to rest in the pool.) In the novel, this scene is extremely unsettling and jarring as its shows a local holocaust which occurred without a rational explanation and, even worse, not at the hands of external tyrannical forces, but only by the participant residents themselves.

What I find significant about High Rise, is its relevance to the current state of the world. As a story of the fragile nature of the social construct which can completely unravel from small disruptions, there is something to learn for now. This social de-evolution, to a state that is completely unthinkable does actually occur. In recent memory it has happened in Syria and Sarajevo, and the modern first-world currently hangs on the edge of sliding down such a steep precipice. The most prominent question that arises asks: why don't the residents simply leave? But history shows again and again people gripping onto their section of the world even as it erupts into total chaos, as they grip tighter in spite of this, possessing what is "their" even as it turns to rubbish. There is a Luciferian notion that it is better to rule in Hell, than serve in Heaven - that outside civilization which is maintained by someone else. After being immersed in dysfunctionality, Wilder finds time away from the building "dreamlike in its unreality" and eventually Laing cannot even force himself to leave. Like a lobster being boiled, each event which worsens conditions is not recognized to be part of an on-going chain with extreme results. Perhaps people are ultimately too optimistic. How can the world be progressing along, and all of a sudden we are living inside a nightmare that no one chose to stop before it started (as happened so many times in the twentieth century).  This is an exploration of that phenomena.

The additional political messages inserted in the film seem to only over-emphasize the theme, which is already overly presented and all too clear in the novel- as the building, with is numerical hierarchy of residents, is an obvious metaphor of class systems. But, this seems overly idealized in the film with Wilder's low class (level) flat displaying a Che Guevara poster and the closing Margaret Thatcher quote. This quote: "There is only one economic system in the world, and that is capitalism." is interesting in itself in that it completely embodies ideology. If it is taken to mean that Capitalism is the only possible system, in an end of history view, than it is total ideology without any objective value or meaning, as it dismisses any alternative possibilities. Conversely, if it is taken to mean that all economics are capitalistic in nature, then it turns the two terms into synonyms and strips away any meaningful distinction of capitalism. I don't find the story a compelling challenge to capitalism, although it makes strong statements about consumerism.  Rather it concerns a more fundamental layer of human nature, the initial ideological conditions before they are systematized into economic structures.  What is most interesting is Royal's response to the complete breakdown of his utopia, as he embraces this breakdown rather than attempting to fix it, a position that Laing also embraces and continues.  So the resulting message becomes maybe everything needs to be destroyed before it can be rebuilt, but the dangers of nihilism are a serious threat without meaningful response that is left unconsidered in the work.

The film is disappointing not because it's bad, in fact it is unique enough to leave a strong impression,  but because it could have been so much better. There were so many things that could have been done different to explain the story, while at the same time not explicitly hitting the viewer over the head.  So many interesting scenes I was waiting for ultimately never occurred, instead being replaced by some 1970s acid induced psychedelic trip or watered down, destroying the effect.  However, in both version, the story leaves a chilling, disconcerting afterimage.

As Ballard's characters "surrender to a logic more powerful than reason," the underlying proximity of the Real becomes apparent.  Safe within the stable realms of our Symbolic world, we can function on a level far evolved from barbaric savagery.  But, really, this stability is an illusion, we are only existing on a fragile coating of a surface suspending us out of the Real.  A simple crack in this layer can easily disintegrate the chain of meaning that sustains society.  Reason can only manifested through Symbolic mechanisms, but the more fundamental conditions of the Real always persist within us.  And as the more fundamental level of existence, it contains its own logic, not as articulate-able propositions, but as forces.  Recent shifts of political thought have shown this fragility, as pressure exerted from the narrow, but vocal, political movements which have caused further forceful  ideological balkanization, pushing us all deeper into factions built on our own adopted Symbolic systems.  The field has been set for final disintegration, with each person ready to take up arms for their own banner.  While the full potentiality of this political disintegration is only now becoming clear, Ballard seemed well aware of the unsustainability of civilized modernity back in 1975, once again showing tremendous foresight.

Postmodern Picard

With what sounded like a miracle, it was announced that we would finally be able to continue exploring the world of the 24th Century with the return of Jean Luc Picard.  The release of Picard itself, however, has driven a fissure through the world of Trek fans.  Both in terms of its structure and its 24th century content, it is far removed from the last time we viewed the Next Generation Era.   Trek has always reflected the real-world conditions of its time.  1960s Star Trek dealt with themes of gender and races analogous to the cultural transformations of that decade, along with directly mimicking its styles.  The situations of The Next Generation, along with the concurrent TOS films, reflected a world anchored in the outlook of 1990, environmentalism, gender orientation, economic disparity, all at the approaching end of the millennium when it seemed that society might finally make progress into a more stabilized form. Within this evolution, the end of the Cold War was perhaps a decisive element.  The stand-off between the Super-powers of the galaxy  that drove the politics of TOS was now in a dynamic shift.  The sudden crumbling of the Klingon Empire reflected the end of the Soviet Union, and while Picard existed in a post-Klingon universe, Kirk had to directly, personally deal with the transformation.  Now that we have returned to the Federation, 20+ years after Next Generation, these underlying dynamics have shifted the stable foundations of the world.  Many Trek fans are disturbed by the less-than-optimistic view that is at odds with the established Roddenberry universe.  It must be remembered that as Trek has reflected points in the later 20th Century, the newest 21st Century continuation must also reflect where we are at.  Much has change (not for the better) since we last saw Picard aboard the Enterprise.  We have had to endure the aftermath of 9/11 (which undermined the post-Cold war optimism we briefly encountered), followed by economic collapse and the disintegration of political stability.  The criticism that the Federation at the dawn of the 25th century does not hold the same ideals as the Federation we have known is missing the point.  Political entities do not remain static, and all such entities will undergo periods of crisis and de-evolution.  Returning to a Federation with a 1990 viewpoint would not posses the depth that we would ultimately expect from the world of Trek.  Along with the Klingons, the Cardassians, Romulans, and, ostensibly, the Borg has left the Federation as the sole super-power of the quadrant.  Without political challengers, and no one to answer to, the Federation is adrift in its own power.  Where one could rationally suppose a unified utopia could be finally achieved, as history has shown, entities define themselves in terms of the other.  Without peer-adversaries, one has to look for scapegoats to account for inadequacies.  The idea of a corrupt Starfleet is not a new idea at all.  Several Next Generation and Deep Space Nine stories were concerned with such a contingency (And were able to simply overcome the problem within one or two episodes, never to be concerning again).  Furthermore, the notion of a lees-than-equal class of non Starfleet citizens was always a nagging concealment.  There has been a long standing argument that the Federation is a Starfleet- controlled military dictatorship, with civilian life a more austere existence than the Socialist utopia it purports to be.

What Picard displays is the non-Starfleet life that is flourishing in a less restrictive environment.  It is a world with experience life on the surface, rather than anchored to a stable foundation of principle and goal.  Places like Freecloud are emerging, embracing the expansion of personal freedom, all entwined within economic relations.  The connected world of the Federation, presumably much more able than our own internet-connected world, had been previously shown to be a no-nonsense, utilitarian transfer of information.  Now, the fringes of commercial society can release their own vision.   Rather than simple browser pop-ups, orbiting such commercially free planets enables frivolous full 3D holographic pop-ups.  The everyday tech of the Federation has taken extraordinary leaps in 30 years (like our own).  The new instant walk-through street transporters are stunning compared to the limitations negotiated in TOS, forcing a inquiry of how they might work - how does the system know where you're going (assuming that they are not, inefficiently,  simple single-destination systems).  If there is an answer to that, I predict it will be: there's an app for that!  Now that all digital display screens (and controls) have become holographic projections, it seems plausible that everyone carries around the credit-card size digital device that replaces phones, tablets and computers.  Pre-selecting you destination before walking into the nearest transporter might be the most convenient method.  With this new level of tech, residents of the 25th century live with a slick, glowing augmented reality, far removed from a more grounded, organic existence.

As for the form of the show, many will ask: why can't we have stand-alone episodes.  Conversely, I have, for a while now, asked what if Next Generation had been able to be constructed as a long arc, it could have been epic.  The 40 minute episode didn't really have a beginning, middle, end,  structure.  There was a build-up of the problem-at-hand, and a resolution with less than a minute to go.  There wasn't much of and end, just a stop to the episode.  A good portion of the series felt like discrete points, without much continuity other than involving the same characters.  So, count me as one who does not miss the stand-alone episodes.  There is some difficulty in finding a position between vastly separated episodes,  and fragments of one story. I think this an area that the Mandalorian could have handled better, as it feels like a bunch of separate tales trying to be one unified story.  If there is a let-down to the form of Picard, it is that, even as a season-arc, the end comes with a few minutes to go, without addressing the major crisis at hand.  After millennia of preparing to eradicate galactic life, some extremely  powerful entity is quickly thwarted, and no one gives it a further thought. In very non-Starfleet thinking, no one attempts to question who this race is, what they might really be about, or how to avert their potential threats in the future.  Furthermore, the appearance of hundreds of Starfleet vessels, of the latest class, and in nearly instant time, is pure fanboy ridiculousness. Where previous crisis situations required the attention of the ONLY, incomplete, vessel with the region, now entire advanced fleets are ready on a moments notice to intervene on non-Starfleet missions.  The video-game fell ruins the internal logic that the Star Trek world is built upon.  But, if this series is still finding its way, like its progenitors, the future of Star Trek looks ready to continue the quality reflection of our own world, 55 years on.