Equilibrium

Equilibrium is a science fiction action film written and directed by Kurt Wimmer. It stars Christian Bale as Cleric John Preston, a warrior-priest and enforcement officer in a future dystopia where both feelings and any creative expression are outlawed and citizens take daily injections of drugs to suppress their emotions. After accidentally missing a dose, Preston begins to experience emotions which make him question his own morality and moderate his actions, while attempting to remain undetected by the suspicious society in which he lives. Ultimately he aids a resistance movement using “Gun-Kata”, which he was taught serving the very regime he is to help overthrow.

CLERIC PRESTON

Preston begins the film as a ruthless “Cleric”, whose job is to destroy any evidence of human emotion and dispose of “sense offenders”. He is the most talented Cleric of Libria; brutally efficient at his job and the art of Gun-Kata. When he stops taking the emotion-suppressant Prozium, he realizes the horror of what he has been committing and joins the underground revolution to overthrow Father.

Preston has two main outfits; his black Cleric military-style frock coat with black trousers and boots, and his white ceremonial outfit with katana. The black of his original outfit is symbolic of his allegiance to the totalitarian government, as well has his violence, lack of morality and absence of emotion. At the climax of the film he changes into his white suit, representing his status as a freedom fighter, the saviour of the revolution, and a man who has fully embraced and harnessed his emotions.

Preston works well as a protagonist; he initially gains the favour of the audience through his impressive physical skills with the firearm based martial art Gun-Kata, although it is difficult for viewers to sympathise with his initial stoic and brutal character, especially when he is shown burning the Mona Lisa and shooting his partner for reading poetry. The whole narrative of the film is about the beauty of emotion, and it is Preston’s emotional journey that endears him to the viewers; as he grieves for his wife, expresses guilt over the death of his partner and falls in love with a convicted Sense Offender – as he becomes truly human - the audience understand and recognise his emotions as what they have experienced themselves, entirely sympathising with the cause of the emotionally liberated revolutionaries that he joins.

Preston is highly intelligent and highly competent physically, with incredibly strong loyalties. He is played by Christian Bale, who is attractive, but not enough to make him significantly stand out from a crowd of average people, although he does have a powerful presence. These are all aspects we want to incorporate into our protagonist.

FATHER/ DUPONTE

“Father” is the name of the all-controlling, supposedly benevolent, dictator of Libria, the equivalent of ‘Big Brother’. He is a God-like figure, whose orders are never questioned or disobeyed, no matter how contradictory. He appears in video clips shown all over Libria, giving lectures on history, politics and the benefits of a society under the influence of Prozium, and constantly updates a list of banned, “EC-10” contraband substances that give evidence to human emotion. It is Duponte’s job to receive and interpret Father’s commands, however, it is revealed that Father died many years ago, and Duponte has simply taken his place and taken command himself. Duponte is a politician who does not take Prozium, and actively collects and hoards art. He is a power-hungry hypocrite who intended to provoke Preston into experiencing emotion, hoping to use him as a pawn to lead him to the leaders of the revolution.   

LOVE INTEREST – MARY O’BRIEN

                                     

Mary O’Brien is a “sense offender” caught by Preston recently after he stops taking his Prozium. Her long dark hair and her deep red dress signify that she is a wild character, and her minimal makeup emphasizes her natural beauty, provoking Preston’s newly awakened emotions. Her hair and makeup are also reminiscent of Viviana Preston, Preston’s wife. Flashbacks reveal the quiet intensity of his relationship with his Viviana, whom he protected instinctively but did not understand, and his relationship with Mary is used to show how far he has come in his emotional journey. Mary goes through the same trial and imprisonment as Viviana did, and at each step, flashbacks and security footage are used to juxtapose his previous lack of emotion to his newly discovered passions. It is watching the footage of Viviana’s execution, and the grief he finally experiences through it, that prompt him to try and save Mary. His helplessness to stop her fate is what triggers the last few barriers holding his emotions back to disappear.

MARY O'BRIEN

   

VIVIANA PRESTON

SPEECHMAKING IN EQUILIBRIUM

“Libria, I congratulate you. At last peace reigns in the heart of man. At last war is but a word whose meaning fades from our understanding. At last, we are whole. Librians, there is a disease in the heart of man. Its symptom is hate. Its symptom is anger. Its symptom is rage. Its symptom is war. The disease is human emotion. But Libria, I congratulate you, for there is a cure for this disease. At the cost of the dizzying highs of human emotion, we have suppressed its abysmal lows. And you, as a society, have embraced this cure: Prozium. Now we are at peace with ourselves and human kind is one. War is gone. Hate, a memory. We are our own conscience now, and it is this conscience that guides us to rate EC-10, for emotional content, all those things that might tempt us to feel, again, and destroy them. Librians, you have won. Against all odds, and your own natures. You, have, survived.”

Father uses the same kind of subtle indoctrination technique that we want to use in our trailer; emphasising that the government is working on behalf of the people, focusing on the positive and addressing the audience directly.

LIBRIA

Libria is a dystopian society, controlled by Father by the emotion-suppressing drug Prozium. It has many parallels to Nazi Germany – it was filmed mainly in Eastern Germany, because of the unique combination of fascist and modern architecture built specifically "to make the individual feel small and insignificant so the government seems more powerful" – such as the ruthless army of elite soldiers (the Cleric vs the SA) recruited specifically to protect the government and strike fear in the rebels, the emphasis on family units, the single un-questionable leader and the insistence of utopia amidst the horrifying reality of totalitarianism.

The Librian flag is a modified swastika, and appears frequently throughout the film, for example, the shape of the loudspeakers, and the shape of Preston's muzzle flashes when he shoots.

ICONIC IMAGES OF THE PROTAGONIST

One of the most memorable parts of the film is Christian Bale performing "gun-kata". This fan-made image highlights the different martial-arts positions used and the dramatic effect that blue light produces.

The most iconic image of the protagonist is his A-frame stance sillhouette, seen near the beginning of the film. This sets him up as a dangerous and capable character, an image we want to recreate for our protagonist.