High Rise

Saw High Rise, a film based on the book of the same name by J G Ballard.  The idea is that in the near future of the 70s, there is a giant block of apartments with a grocery, a gym, a daycare, and all of the modern necessities.  It's so luxurious and plush, you'd never have to leave!  Alas, the building is a metaphor for class struggle, and soon the lower levels are in full revolt against the upper levels, each holding debauched parties which are indistinguishable from riots and the building descends into a divine state of savagery.

As with other Ballard stories, the premise alone is enough to hook me!  The film delivers on this high-minded self-seriousness.  There's a ton of crazy imagery and tony, arty, sequences in slow motion and in close up.  It's a lot of fun in a kind of over-the-top, operatic kind of way.  The retro-futurism lends it a familiar yet alien feel, and watching society collapse from excess and inequality is sadly timely right now (although this film was made in late 2015.)

The drawbacks of the film are its strengths: the showy, fairy-tale-like imagery and story.  Because it's so fairy-tale-like, it sometimes leaves big plot holes open.  I kept wondering, for example, why they don't just move out?  These omissions are telling however.  This is not actually a story about an apartment building but about our society or our nation.  Why don't we just move, you know?

The film is also sometimes very heavy-handed with its symbolism.  I enjoyed it in its sort of operatic excess, but, like the architect of the building lives in the penthouse suite and dresses only in white.  At one point he hosts a costume party where everyone is dressed as French nobility.  Could the revolution be at hand?  Yes, I think it could.

The film is ultimately a lot of arty, pretty fun.  Once society begins to collapse, the characters slide into a familiar sort of savagery, with the upper floors forming committees to plan raiding parties and abducting the lower levels' wives and the lower levels getting drunk and high.  It's all very fun in a sinister sort of way.  You also get to hear two great covers of S.O.S. by ABBA!