“White plastic sky”: hand-drawn post-apocalypse in Budapest
[ad_1]
“White Plastic Sky,” a full-length science-fiction cartoon about how, after a global catastrophe, people survive inside a city covered with an impenetrable dome, is being released in Russia. And they supplement with GMO cannibalism.
In the Hungary of the future, in 2123, things are so-so. Budapest from a bird’s eye view looks like a rusty microcircuit, although life is in full swing in it. However, even after a hundred years people have not made any special breakthroughs. Almost everything they have is in our current style: laptops are the same, tablets are the same. Music in clubs, dancing, restaurants are no different from ours. And even the men’s beards are cut in our modern style. Cars just seem to have gotten uglier.
But there are still differences. Everything is according to the words of our classic: in this Budapest of theirs these are the times – maybe they will say “drink and eat!”, but maybe they won’t care. Something must have happened there: all the animals disappeared, the plants too, people survived only in Hungary (logical – where else?) and now they eat each other.
And Budapest is covered with a transparent dome. This is where “White Plastic Sky” begins, a full-length science fiction cartoon that is being released in Russia. Production – Hungary and Slovakia, directors – Sharolta Szabo and Tibor Banocki, premiere – Berlin Film Festival – 2023, no awards.
Happy people of the future eat each other, of course, not haphazardly. Up to fifty years – life, after – Sacrifice: an injection of mutagen that turns a person into a special tree. People thrive in the City, trees are cared for in the Plantation. Their leaves are used to prepare food for the survivors. The problem is that the trees are suitable for use only for three years – then the time of flowering comes, their pollen becomes deadly poisonous, so they are burned. It is impossible to stop the transformation scheme.
But you can speed up the process, don’t wait until you’re fifty, come to a special laboratory where they’ll give you an injection… This is exactly what the protagonist’s wife does: the family recently lost their son (the medicine of the future is also not up to par), and she can’t live with it.
But the main character can and does decide to save his wife. By the way, he is a psychologist. Psychologists who, from childhood, prepare the residents of the City for the fact that at some point they will not only have to lose loved ones, but also eat them later, are, of course, very important people in this scheme.
This is the plot: the doctor tricks his way into the Plantation, and then the adventures begin. A viewer who has already seen at least a dozen of these films about the post-apocalypse, about the world after a catastrophe, where there is a closed ghetto for survivors, does not expect any special surprises: it is clear that behind the facade of a rationally organized society there are various dark secrets, things are not as they should be At first it seems that the authorities are hiding a lot.
There will be no surprises: dark secrets are present, but the authorities are hiding them. But an inquisitive psychologist – forgive the spoiler – will, of course, figure everything out.
Yes, since this is animation, something needs to be said about the graphics. Well, the creators of computer games captured our imagination with such graphics ten or twelve years ago. Warm nostalgic feelings come over a person who loves shooters (well, or he did back then, ten or twelve years ago, when he was younger, and the trees—ordinary trees, not made from people—were taller and greener). The locations are such that you begin to regret the lack of a shotgun – I wish I could wander around here, treating monsters with buckshot from two barrels at once! But there are locations, but no monsters, just a desert with ruins.
And a not at all dashing man wanders through this desert, obsessed with a single goal: to save his beloved, to prevent his wife from finally turning into a log. Sorry, but that’s literally how it is.
As befits a science fiction film, this is, of course, a philosophical parable. About love. Everything here is like in the “Song of Songs”: love is strong as death. There are actually several love stories in the film, and one (not the main one) is quite sophisticated, which is what it is.
About love, about whether a lover has the right to interfere in the choice of the one he loves, about the limits of what is permissible with such interference… In general, about choice and the lack of choice.
A modern Russian can easily understand this idea: if going to the cinema is an important ritual for him, then White Plastic Sky is worth watching. For some reason there is no choice. Something must have happened. Like the Budapest of the future. The film is passable – if you throw around ratings, then a solid C. True, on a scale of ten.
By the way, in Dante’s hell, in the seventh circle, suicides turn into trees. I don’t presume to judge whether Sharolta Szabó and Tibor Banocki intended to hint at this to the viewer, or whether it happened by chance.
And when the credits begin, only one mystery remains: why is the movie called that? The sky there is not white or plastic. A transparent dome, probably glass, through which you can see how it rains and lightning flashes in a large and extinct world.
In theaters from April 4
Subscribe to Weekend channel in Telegram
[ad_2]
Source link
