I have to admit that I've not read George Orwell's original novel '1984'; but everyone knows the story and many elements of it have made their way into popular culture. Since I've not read the book; I can't comment on whether or not this film version is faithful to the literature, but apparently this is one of the more faithful movie versions. Director Michael Radford takes the subject material and uses it to paint an incredibly bleak vision of the future; one so bleak that all the warmth of the movie is thoroughly drained from it and we are left with is incredibly lifeless and hard to get on with. Our main character is a man named Smith. Smith works in a people intensive environment where he is charged with the task of rewriting history. This future society has been divided into three parts; and we focus on Oceania, of which London is the capital. The state is ruled over by 'Big Brother' and thinking outside of the box is against the law. Smith falls in love with a woman named Julia; which is of course against the rules of the totalitarian society.
The movie takes more time instilling the situation of the future than it does on the actual characters; so while we get a chilling portrait of how this modern society is ran and the rules that govern it; we are unfortunately not given much in the way of reasons to care about our main characters' plights. The story itself has some very interesting points to make, however; and depending on your stance, you may well believe that modern society is moving ever closer to the 'Big Brother' of this film; here in the UK we are already being threatened with the prospect of ID cards, security cameras and ISP's spying on our internet connections, so maybe Orwell's vision is not such a distant possibility. Going back to the film; it does have to be said that it is well made. The acting is generally very good and the cinematography very much fits the style and atmosphere that the story demands. Some say that this film is terrifying; though the disengagement from the lead characters made it less so for me, and this is definitely the main problem. I haven't seen any other versions of this story, however (unless Brazil counts) and while I'm not overly fussed with this film; it is at least worth a look.
The movie takes more time instilling the situation of the future than it does on the actual characters; so while we get a chilling portrait of how this modern society is ran and the rules that govern it; we are unfortunately not given much in the way of reasons to care about our main characters' plights. The story itself has some very interesting points to make, however; and depending on your stance, you may well believe that modern society is moving ever closer to the 'Big Brother' of this film; here in the UK we are already being threatened with the prospect of ID cards, security cameras and ISP's spying on our internet connections, so maybe Orwell's vision is not such a distant possibility. Going back to the film; it does have to be said that it is well made. The acting is generally very good and the cinematography very much fits the style and atmosphere that the story demands. Some say that this film is terrifying; though the disengagement from the lead characters made it less so for me, and this is definitely the main problem. I haven't seen any other versions of this story, however (unless Brazil counts) and while I'm not overly fussed with this film; it is at least worth a look.