Never Let Me Go (Fox Searchlight, DNA films 2010)
The film based on the novel stars Carey Mulligan as Kathy, Keira Knightly as Ruth, and Andrew Garfield as Tommy. Within the book this triangle struggles to find its identity with each other and those they come in contact once they have become friends. It is this struggle that defines their humanity. However, in the film the story leans more towards anti-establishment and questioning it love is worth the fight. In the book, Miss Lucy is the first to lay it out straight for the students. She's been there for a while, the students know her, and this final step before she is fired comes out of frustration and years of wondering why they do what they do for children who will never be able to fully enjoy life as it is meant to be lived. It's not that she wants them cooped up like chickens or The Matrix. The impression she gives is that she doesn't want them disillusioned, thus she would prefer that they could pursue normal lives like anyone else. In the film, however, Miss Lucy is a new teacher who quickly gets fed up with the children not knowing the truth. While the idea is that she cares about the children, the sudden arrival and swift removal is more akin to anti-establishment illustrations. You have the rebel show up who refuses to go along with the rules and lets the secret out that everyone seems to be keeping. These things are not typically done for the benefit of the people, but the one who does it. Miss Lucy is then not the solid, well rounded, and trustworthy teacher we have in the book, but a malcontent who we are not sure if she thinks the kids should ever do anything since their future is basically nothing. But all of these struggles that children must now go through reveals our humanity. Some choose to think about it and work through it while others are keen to forget they ever heard it and go along with life as usual. The stages of denial are certainly present within the suspected soulless clones.
The Island (Warner Bros., Dreamworks SKG 2005)
Released around the same time as the novel, Never Let Me Go, The Island is also about a race of harvestable beings kept from general society. They are given a Utopian society that is disrupted when one of the main characters, Lincoln Six Echo, a clone of Tom Lincoln, both played by Ewan McGregor, finds out that he is a clone of Tom Lincoln in the event of an emergency where Tom needs spare parts. From here he breaks out a friend who becomes a love interest and tries to free the clones and shut the facility down. These are all examples of how a normal human who discovers that they are being held captive would react. Ishiguro doesn't choose this element of humanity, though. Through the weaving of tales about children dying in the forest or starving to death outside of the gates of Hailsham, the students are slowly self-convinced that running is not an option. It is the proverbial frog boiled in water which is slowly increased in temperature. Since Lincoln never knew, he was thrown into a boiling pot of water and immediately tried to get out. But Tommy, Ruth, and Kathy have been told from the beginning that this who they are and what they are meant for, and the myths help to enforce that running will only lead you to a place where you cannot defend or provide for yourself. Thus they stay in captivity, much as a dog who has been systematically electrocuted by an invisible fence. Eventually you don't need the fence anymore because the dog “knows” it can't go anywhere.
Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go. New York: Vintage International, 2006. Print.
The Island. Dir. Michael Bay. Perf. Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, and Djimon Hounsou. Warner Bros., and Dreamworks SKG, 2005. DVD.
Never Let Me Go. Dir. Mark Romanek. Perf. Keira Knightly, Andrew Garfield, and Carey Mulligan. Fox Searchlight and DNA Films, 2010. DVD.
No comments:
Post a Comment