Eccentric, extravagant and provocative, "The Island" is bound to be misunderstood and rashly dismissed as incoherent by the majority of its audience. In fact, the film is a bold experiment with story-telling, which proves a challenge for more than one dichotomy as well as for the persistent notion of the One and True (self/story/style, etc.). It dares our spectators' habits by en- and decoding its various parts as belonging to a certain genre or media, only to confuse and mix them in a way that denies us the option of choosing one over the other. As spectators, we might be irritated, disoriented or pointing triumphantly at the "clichés" and "references" of which the film swarms. But we might also be charmed by the ease with which it manages to provoke this instability: without being didactic or, even worse, moralistic. "The Island" is ironic, but not compromising (which is, indeed, a merit, especially regarding its second part); it is challenging but not aggressive. It is also intelligent and allows a reading at various levels, of which the media-reflective is certainly only one possibility.
"The Island" is neither the story of a person, who manages to escape his dull reality as a businessman only to find his true self, nor the kitschy over-ambitious project for a media grotesque – both readings suggested by some reviewers and critics. Instead, I would insist that exactly by bringing together all of its contradictory elements, styles and displaced allusions, does the film succeed in being coherent in the most important aspect: in systematically resisting in being categorizable, univocal or loyal (loyal to the single myth, the single genre, the single story, loyal to the notion that divisions between profane and sophisticated can still be incautiously applied, or loyal to the idea of one-dimensionality). By doing so, a much wider and fascinating perspective unfolds, one that might be described as challenging but also as ethical – as gentle as the moment in which the camera lingers on the contemplative face of a Big Brother star.
"The Island" is neither the story of a person, who manages to escape his dull reality as a businessman only to find his true self, nor the kitschy over-ambitious project for a media grotesque – both readings suggested by some reviewers and critics. Instead, I would insist that exactly by bringing together all of its contradictory elements, styles and displaced allusions, does the film succeed in being coherent in the most important aspect: in systematically resisting in being categorizable, univocal or loyal (loyal to the single myth, the single genre, the single story, loyal to the notion that divisions between profane and sophisticated can still be incautiously applied, or loyal to the idea of one-dimensionality). By doing so, a much wider and fascinating perspective unfolds, one that might be described as challenging but also as ethical – as gentle as the moment in which the camera lingers on the contemplative face of a Big Brother star.