No Sympathy for the Devil: A critical topography of the future
The blog post discusses the filmmaker’s use of two key elements in the film’s narrative: firstly, the adaptation of the classical myth of Orpheus and Eurydice that is being set in a near future, and secondly, the construction of a futuristic city by using the materials of the present (1997). I shall examine how the director uses the hidden city as scenery for the adaptation of the aforementioned myth. Moreover, I shall present the characteristics that compose the film’s futuristic symphony, such as scenery and sound. Finally, I shall examine how and why the filmmaker creates an opposition between the visible and the invisible, darkness and light, and in what way those concepts are empowered by the film’s black and white photography. In the first part of the post I discuss the adaptation of the myth as well as the dialectics of darkness and light that are present in the film in many ways. In the second part I examine the film’s urban imagery and the filmmaker’s construction of the futuristic city. ... More