After watching GATTACA, the first thing I felt was that the translation theory class last semester was not in vain. If the Chinese translation of movie names continues as before, I will definitely be able to find a job in the future even if I read a lot of books. I don’t know whether to scold the translator for his low level or to laugh at the vulgarity of the public’s interest, but I really don’t know what to say. The word “GATTACA” is not found in the dictionary, but it is the name of a biology course in the university, ACTG is the abbreviation of the four basic units of DNA, and the course constructed with these four letters is the study of genetics at the molecular level. The use of this word as the title of the movie foreshadows the content of the movie, which is a science fiction story related to genes.
In a world where technology is increasingly dominant, eugenics is no longer a vision of a Platonic “ideal state”, but has in fact become a reality: the prohibition of consanguineous marriage, fertility policies for carriers of genetic diseases… …the film merely envisions this technological intervention at a higher level and contemplates some of the problems that come with it. This vision of a virtual “reality” that somehow transcends the barriers of time is unique to science fiction films, rather than the “Lord of the Rings” fantasy films that merely allow the weight of present-day life to be forgotten in a fantasy land.
“All men are created equal.” In fact, those who have a real insight into society will find that the former has not been completely guaranteed in any way, and will have to face the fact that nature does not exist in a state of equality, and that the equality of natural man is a beautiful dream. When the earth was not as crowded as it is today, man had the ability to escape from society and choose an idyllic individual life, to withdraw from comparison and eliminate this problem; but today, in a world bounded by capital, where all lands are divided into national boundaries (with the exception of the Arctic ice cap and the Antarctic continent), and every corner of the world is explored, occupied and planned by civilization, a completely individual existence is possible. In this world, every corner of the world has been explored, occupied and planned by civilization, and there is no place for a fully individual existence. “.
Inequality is not simply a descriptive word, it can have different meanings when different criteria are involved. What is shown in the film is the most dominant and indeed the only standard that has the ability to intervene in the judgment in the present society. For the sake of capital, the new God, and to listen to his gospel of profit, all the values of life are translated into efficiency and product. The film’s protagonist, Vincent (Ethan Hawke), is born genetically incompetent, with a 99% chance of dying of heart failure between the ages of 30.2. So his fate in this new “Bible” written by mathematical models inside is to determine the lifetime of cleaning, what “the beauty of dreams”, “the will of the firm”, “the courage to bear suffering “all are worthless in front of economics and probability theory. The company only trains “qualified people” whose “heart beats like a piano” during running workouts, even if his top astronaut is an inferior genetic cripple who gets off the treadmill with aplomb but almost chokes to death back in the locker room.
However, it is this substandard product that is judged to be the evolutionary history of mankind, relying on that weak heart in the advancement of the boundless sea, but won his “qualified and excellent” but almost drowned brother, because in his mind never thought of turning back to the shore …… exactly It is by bearing the worthless judgment imposed on him by the society that he can break out the courage and belief that he is willing to die in every struggle, and it is by the same courage and belief that he writes a magnificent song of struggle with his own flawed DNA sequence.
Unlike Vincent, Jerome (Jude Law) was born a perfect “qualified person”. While Vincent is discriminated against and abandoned by society, he is valued and expected by society. Vincent’s destiny is to live and die worthlessly, his destiny is to “must” create and excel worthily. So when the swimmer only won a silver medal, he could not forgive himself for his failure and chose to commit suicide in an extreme attempt to end a life whose purpose was not clear to him either. However, this attempt only made him unable to stand and walk again, he still survived, and he had to choose to end his meaningless life once again, or to redefine a new meaning for his life. At this time he meets Vincent and sells him his “qualified” status as capital in exchange for wine to put out the fire of his life; gradually, however, he is also infected by Vincent’s faith, and in the role swap he merges his life with Vincent’s, contributing his whole life to the same As Vincent rises into the sky, with the memory of his past dreams and the relief of having achieved his present dreams, Jerome achieves the meaning of his life, peacefully puts the silver medal of honor on his chest and pulls down the starter gate of the incinerator ……
GATTACA is a powerful symphony of the relationship between the soul and the body, but not only a hymn of obsession: Vincent transcends his defective genes, Jerome transcends his crippled limbs, they conquer their respective destinies given by society and let their souls run wild above their bodies. On the contrary, when the “qualified” people, who are completely alienated by the world, are obsessed with “achievement”, they face “obstacles in the way” and break through the “non-violent” genes. There is no propensity for violence” genetically, pick up a keyboard and knock people’s skulls to pieces. Cleansing the heart and creating paradise can never be a task that can be accomplished by mere technology, and I regard this as a noteworthy point outside the main theme of the film.