The local video store is doing a rent-one-DVD-rent-second-free thing this month, and I picked up Gattaca as the bonus movie last week, having missed it when it was in theaters.
Intelligent science fiction films, where the focus is on the play of ideas rather than wizbang special effects of aliens, is a rare thing. Gattaca follows in the tradition of Blade Runner rather than Independence Day. True, Blade Runner has dazzling visuals, but the core of the film is the philosophical question, what does it mean to be human?
Gattaca's particular idea, that genetic information contains much information which may be used destructively, has timeliness. Witness, for example, the recently hubbub over the New York Police Department's proposal to begin DNA sampling of everyone arrested. Privacy advocates note that this goes far beyond fingerprinting as identification, as genetic information may contain confidential medical information. This is perhaps how the filmmakers envision their dystopia coming about: baby steps down a slippery slope.
The plot of the movie concerns the efforts of Vincent to pass himself off as Jerome. Vincent is freeborn, conceived without the benefit of genetic tinkering to, say, remove a tendency for heart problems or learning disorders. Jerome is the result of such extensive manipulation, gifted with the genes of high intelligence, physical performance, and slicked back hair. He, unfortunately, broke his back, and is confined to a wheelchair. He sells his identity to Vincent, literally his body, as identity consists of blood and urine samples, flakes of dandruff and loose hair, all carefully drawn and placed where snoops may find it.
Vincent's ultimate goal is to travel in space. All the effort to disguise himself as Jerome goes towards getting into Gattaca, some sort of future space agency in which only the genetically perfect are selected. The bulk of the film shows the plot starting to unravel, as someone is murdered on Gattaca's premises and Vincent leaves an eyelash in the wrong place.
This is a stylized, designed future, a vision of the world as decorated by Hugo Boss. The geneticall perfect were well-tailored suits, the offices are quiet, sleek temples of efficiency. Space travel here does not involve the sensible application of duct tape in the right places, but well-apportioned dabs of hair gel for that perfect look. Yes, the film goes out of the way to emphasize the dominance of style and look in this world.
Actually, one nice style effect is the garb of the detectives investigating the case. The long gray coats and fedoras suggest the 1930s, when Fascism was at its high tide, and genetic discrimination more acceptable. This sort of style is also somewhat embodied in the cars, and the look of the high end night clubs.
Well, there are some flaws. The, uh, cosmetic flaws include the unnoticed necessary condition of the main character looking like, say, Ethan Hawke, instead of looking like, say, me. Ethan Hawke can pass himself off as a genetically scuplted uebermensch to Gattaca Human Resources and Uma Thurman; I doubt I can. While there may not be a gene for the human spirit, Our Hero wouldn't have gotten far without looking good in the thousand dollar suit.
There are nice touches to the film, touches that add credibility to this world, a necessity for science fiction. One is the Genetic LoveTest, sort of like http://www.lovetest.com, but where you enter hair or saliva samples instead of Zodiac signs. Yes, genetic testing trickling down to the advertisement-supported mass market. True, the filmmakers were trying to convey how twisted this society is by having this sort of genetic assay be par for the course, but I just liked the furtive, cyberpunk grungy seediness of the whole thing.
For the larger issues, I'm of two minds about the films portrayal of genetic discrimination. Many of the traits mentioned in the film, especially the positive ones, may well have tendencies because of genetics, but they are also strongly influenced by environment. A tendency for lung cancer may only be expressed if that person smoked. Some gene for musical talent won't matter one jot if that person mangled his hand in some childhood accident. Contingencies of the environment matter. More strongly, genes are carriers of evolutionary information, and nothing more. We know very clearly that they do not constitute the entire person. I have doubts that any reasonable society would ignore this.
I also don't have serious problems with using genetics to correct clear biological problems, like diabetes or tendencies for breast cancer. Genetic technology, like most technologies, can be used for both good and evil. It's up to the culture using it to determine that congenitcal heart defects are something to be addressed, while hair color is not.
Perhaps I have more faith in such matters than I should. Culture cuts both ways. Even primitive assays can be used for what we would call evil purposes. Consider China's shortfall of baby girls, because the culture places prominence on firstborn sons. Simple miotic fluid assays are sufficient to cause this deficit, to say nothing of sophisiticated genetic tests.
Arguably, this is the practice of leaving babies on the mountaintop made more precise. Interestingly, the filmmakers, on one of the DVD extras, seem to claim that once the Human Genome Project is complete, we will begin to control our own evolution. This is clearly wrong: we've been controlling our own evolution since the beginnings of civilization, as natural selection no longer really applies. Culture has a long shadow.
The film also trips lightly past the issue of remediation after birth. It appears that all of medical technology has wilted away in favor of genetic intervention during conception (for that matter, detective works seems to have suffered a similiar wilting, but that's a plot matter rather than a thematic one). Treating, say, heart murmers with surgery, or high cholesterol with diet and exercise seems to have slipped everyone's mind. This blindness to what medical technology should be able to do in this world is symptomatic of the pure focus on genetic consequences.
The DVD, which, unfortunately, I only had for one night, has a selection of "lost" scenes, which were cut for pacing or thematic reasons. In particular, the "Coda" sequence -- over a starry background text noting that the Human Genome Project is nearing completion, and that many of the Most Interesting People of the Millennium had genetic defects -- was thankfully, tactfully cut. The filmmakers perhaps realized that they were approaching serious overkill by whipping out the central theme and repeatedly slapping the audience with it.
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