Coma

"Coma" is one of those movies which for some reason made a powerful impression on me as a kid. Not through its story line, the acting or Geneviève Bujold(I was still too young to appreciate these "aspects" :-) ), but through an overall atmosphere. Such that, upon reviewing 20 years later, certain scenes trigger memories and almost puts me back into that couch as a 7-8 year old. Another of those movies is the weird early science fiction movie by George Lucas of which the title escapes me right now.

In "Coma", it was in particular the image of the "Jefferson Institute" building that recalled an evening somewhere in the late '70s. There's probably no movie featuring a more effective and suggestive modern-style horror house. For me, the "Jefferson Institute" complex perfectly impersonates and clenches the feeling that this intelligent thriller is trying to get accross. By its architecture and desertedness, it suggests sterility, impersonality, loneliness and the feeling of an industrial complex. The sterility of a medical system that does well in the technical aspect, but features a growing impersonality that makes it miss its primary goal: to make people feel good. The loneliness of Bujold, who is rather assumed by everyone to be paranoid than to be believed, even by her boyfriend. And the industrial feeling of a healthcare system that doesn't exist to cure people, but to keep itself alive as an industry (=profitable).

With the arrival of sophisticated genetic techniques, the medical horror genre is bound to return soon to the big screen. It will be difficult to do a better job than the concisely-titled "Coma"...

JoH