Recently I watched Hotel Artemis, currently available on Prime. Set in Los Angeles in the near future, the city is crumbling and burning from riots and crime. Most of the characters (Sterling K Brown, Sofia Boutella, Charlie Day) are criminals of one sort or another staying at the Hotel Artemis, a safe haven and emergency hospital for individuals that need patching up and/or a place to lie low. The hotel's host (Jodie Foster) and nurse/muscle (Dave Bautista) strictly enforce a number of rules to ensure the safety of their guests and the long term success of the operation. The story happens during one action packed, off the rails night. It was a fun and slick film that blended futuristic technology with a number of wild card characters, but it also wasn't must see.
What stuck out with me most was the feeling of the setting. A lawless and largely barren cityscape in the middle of civil unrest, allowing free rein to dangerous people, wasn't a reality when this movie released in 2018. It was in many of our nation's urban centers during the 2020 summer of protest, and this aspect turned out to be pretty unsettling. The almost dystopian, too close to home, more chaotic version of the world connected better now than it would've two years ago.
While I don't think Hotel Artemis was intended to hit this way, it forced me to think about other movies that do. Plugging into the unease in society, bubbling below the surface or more apparent, has got to explain a few recent surprising successes. Why has The Purge spawned a number of sequels and a TV series? I have to think the idea of allowing raw emotional release without consequences, despite how awful this would be in actuality, connected with people on some level. It's startling that you could plausibly see yourself on either side of a horror story and it's more effective because of it. An even better example of using cultural angst was Joker, which was a box office phenomenon and became the first billion dollar R-rated movie. I still need to see it, but clearly the story of the Batman villains revolution-inspiring descent into madness and violence tapped into something real (cruelty and indifference of the system?) or it wouldn't have made so much money. In both cases the stories appear patently absurd at first glance. But is the possibility of our nation tearing itself apart that far off?
Well before The Purge and Joker were a glut of 70s crime dramas and political thrillers, also seemingly casting light on darker side of life and I also can't help but be reminded of those. I'm talking law enforcement stories like Dirty Harry, Serpico and Chinatown. Paranoid conspiracy flicks like Parallax View and 3 Days of the Condor (inspiring the Winter Soldier). Looks at the underworld like A Clockwork Orange, Dog Day Afternoon, Taxi Driver and The Warriors. They're often difficult to watch and nervously tense, in the end leaving you emotional and feeling helpless. I can't imagine this was all a creation of Hollywood and have to draw some conclusions about life that decade.
What does it all mean? Well we're living in tense times like our country saw 50 years ago. It's not unusual strong feelings such as these to come out in art, even before bad things start to happen. We survived the 70s and should live through all this. As much as possible we should pursue a world that doesn't end in dystopia, which is best kept to fiction. Then hopefully we'll see a new morning in America.
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