The Island, movie review

From its metaphoric title to its powerful end, Director Michael Bay’s The Island had me fully engaged. Told in the genuine style of great science fiction commentary by screenwriters Caspian Tredwell-Owen, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (in 2005), The Island reflects the escape-from dystopia films of the 1960s and 70s such as Fahrenheit 451, THX 1138, and Logan’s Run. This elegant story examines a full range of human foibles—consumerist greed, racism, fascism and isolationism—through a premise that is as frightening as it is possible.

In the year 2019, Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) and Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) live in an isolated community where behavior is governed by a set of strict rules. This includes the avoidance of too close contact. Everything is the same; residents all wear the same white uniform and carry out simple duties. They’ve been told that the outside world is too contaminated for human life with the exception of one island. Everyone lives for the weekly lottery, where the winner gets to leave the compound to live on the island.

It’s a simple and banal existence. We glimpse a scene of adults reading Dick and Jane out loud. When in the opening scene Lincoln Six Echo finds a shoe missing in his provided wardrobe, this becomes a major focus of his day (when greeted by a colleague with, “How are you doing?” he responds with, “I’m missing a shoe.”)

Lincoln can’t accept this mundane existence. In an interview with Dr. Merrick (Sean Bean), the scientist who runs the compound, Lincoln naively unleashes a tirade of items that frustrate him, like why everyone wears white, who determined tofu Tuesday, and then ends with: “I want to know answers and I wish there was more than just waiting to go to the island.” He also suffers from dreams about a life he doesn’t understand—they are, in fact, memories of his ‘sponsor’, the original man (Tom Lincoln) that he is a copy of.  When he discovers a moth and follows it, he stumbles into the hidden part of the compound. There he witnesses what really happens to “lottery winners”: they are killed and used for organ harvesting, surrogate motherhood, etc. for each one’s sponsor.

Lincoln is just an insurance policy. An ‘agnate’ according to Dr. Merrick, who describes them as in a “persistent vegetative state that never achieves consciousness” to clients, willing to pay millions of dollars for a second chance at life—and blithely unaware that ‘agnates’ are alive and fully formed with thoughts and feelings like them.

When Lincoln learns the truth, and knowing that Jordan just “won” the lottery, he convinces her to escape with him. Merrick hires Albert Laurent (Djimon Hounsou), a mercenary and former GIGN veteran, to find and dispatch them.

The Island received mixed reviews from critics, with a 40% “Rotten” rating, based on 185 reviews. Variety’s Justin Chang called the film an “exercise in sensory overkill.” Salon’s Stephanie Zacharek lamented that when the film got really interesting, Bay seemed to think he needed “to throw in a car crash or round of gunfire to keep our attention.” If these critics found fault with this elegant action-thriller, I hate to see what they make of 90% of the so-called SF movies out there today. Unlike them, The Island provides a refreshing meaningful face to action-adventure.

Sean Bean as Dr. Merrick

Roger Ebert suggested that The Island missed the opportunity “to do what the best science fiction does, and use the future as a way to critique the present.” Again, I disagree. The Island does what the best science fiction does well: it examines the nature of our humanity through the choices we make in adversity within a future world and premise that provides great opportunity for abuse.

The theme of this parable is carried evocatively by Steve Jablonsky’s score. Like a swelling tide it sweeps us on a journey to some distant shore. From the melodic strings and yearning chorus, the music builds to a powerful conclusion at the film’s end, when it lifts us to victory, resonating with our divine evolution. I was particularly struck by the timing of the strings and chorus with the appearance of Albert Laurent, walking among those he had just liberated. It is a pivotal and powerful moment that escalates into a resonating vibration of liberty and victory as his eyes meet briefly with Lincoln and Jordan, reunited, and he smiles—for the first time. A beautiful smile of inner joy. It is the smile of a man who has “come home” and is finally free.

Laurent’s subplot is particularly compelling and carries one of the principle elements of the film. In

Djimon Housou as Albert Laurent

some ways, Laurent represents you and me, caught up in our societal ‘duties’, seduced by self-serving entrapments only to awaken to a path of courageous compassion for all of humanity. Laurent’s journey from jaded mercenary to liberating hero begins when he notices Jordan’s skin branding and, recognizing a connection with her plight, helps her free the mass of ‘defective’ lottery winners about to be incinerated. We learn that his father had been killed as a rebel and Laurent was ‘branded’ as less than human. So, there he walks, brilliantly black among the white-clad ‘agnates’ who slide down the hill after emerging from the underground bunker in which they were incarcerated.

This motion picture is ultimately about finding dignity in the face of adversity and ridicule. It is about confronting the bully and gaining victory over one’s own barriers of fear and doubt toward compassion. It is about the power of love and connection with humanity. It is about retribution and finding one’s true path through the knowledge that we are all one.

“I am you; you are me. You are the waves; I am the ocean. Know this and be free, be divine.” Sri Sathya Sai Baba

Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of novels, short stories and essays. She coaches writers and teaches writing at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. For more about Nina’s coaching & workshops visit www.ninamunteanu.me. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for more about her writing.

Are All Canadians Fringe Dwellers?

When I agreed to participate in a study of Romanian writers by the University of Bucharest, I didn’t expect that it would lead to meeting another Canadian writer. That is how fate works…and serendipity. I was talking about seeing life through a different lens in an earlier post, written while still sleep deprived: viewing the world turned upside down or careering on its side. WOOEE!

Then PhD student, Marilena Dracea, at the University of Bucharest who was studying my written works introduced me to a fellow Canadian writer. That in itself is a wondrous thing—that someone half across the world would introduce me to someone in my own country. His name is Shane Joseph. Joseph has written several books. One is entitled Fringe Dwellers. It’s a collection of short stories about the marginalized people in society, those who for some reason or another have suffered some kind of prejudice or treatment as lesser individuals: widows, divorcees, immigrants, unemployed executives, the aged, the young, the poor, those with a perceived mental or physical “infirmity”. He writes about people who once may have led a normal life until a twist in the road—an epiphany, decision, stroke of fate—sent them into the fringes of society.

I would add: or until a collision with an unsavory or unconscionable force or unfair societal condition sent them spinning off the well-beaton path, injured but "enriched". And what of those who have always been perceived this way?

Joseph describes the scenario of a woman who was expelled from her family because she decided to leave the fundamentalist religious organization she was born into. He wrote about a man who is a war hero ... and a bum. Then there was the priest of a dying congregation in a booming suburb. Who are the marginalized and what does that mean? These are people who have a different viewpoint than the current one popular in their culture or region. These are people who may look different, act different, think and speak different, even smell different from the rest. They are generally looked upon askance or overlooked entirely; they are avoided or ridiculed or slandered for being different. They are misunderstood, perhaps even perceived as threatening (to the status quo or precious traditions and rules) just for being who they are.

What is it to be different and how did they get there? Most of the time it isn't an overt choice. Most people don't say to themselves, "I'm going to be different." However, it usually arises from having made some kind of decision (usually from the heart) that ends up setting them apart and making them different, or at least perceived as different (I guess that's the same thing in the end). The view is the opposite of the "mob mentality", which is driven by fear and the need to be the same. To "blend in".

Our society tends to view "fringe dwellers" as "broken" somehow, requiring subduing, in need of alteration (through drugs or some other rehabilitation technique to help them conform); social mores compell us to use our compassion, even our pity on these "wayward" unconventional souls. Instead, society could learn from them. For, like the scattered pieces of a broken mirror (that an ordered society would cast away as inconsequential or "messy") fringe dwellers offer diverse and fresh perspectives on all things important. They are the heralds of change and provide the scaffolding of a more plastic, flowing society that embraces its own evolution.

In a blog post entitled, “Are We All Fringe Dwellers?” Joseph shared that while doing his Canadian book tour, typical middle-class and apparently comfortably off Canadians shared perceptions of their own “marginalization”. This suggested to him that he had “tapped into the [Canadian] zeitgeist quite accidentally”.

Canada has long held international acclaim for its success as a multicultural society and for its ability to celebrate diversity through a federal constitution. In 1971 the Liberal Party government of Pierre Trudeau announced an unprecedented "Implementation of Policy of Multiculturalism within Bilingual Framework" in the House of Commons, the precursor of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act of the Brian Mulroney Progressive Conservative government in 1988. This made Canada the first country in the world to declare multiculturalism as official state policy. Canada's cultural mosaic is described by some as pluralistic, which views each culture or subculture in a society as contributing unique and valuable cultural aspects to the whole culture. In a 2002 interview with the Globe and Mail, the 49th Imam of the Ismaili Muslims described Canada as "the most successful pluralist society on the face of our globe", citing it as "a model for the world."

Perhaps, it is because we are all Fringe Dwellers…

Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of novels, short stories and essays. She coaches writers and teaches writing at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. For more about Nina’s coaching & workshops visit www.ninamunteanu.me. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for more about her writing.

The Fear Behind Censorship: Mob Mentality

"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition: for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine


The American Library Association defines censorship as "the suppression of ideas and information that certain persons--individuals, groups or government officials--find objectionable or dangerous. It is no more complicated than someone saying, 'don't let anyone read this book, or buy that magazine, or view that film, because I object to it.' "