I've just finished watching an awful movie, "The Fifth Element", a grotesque science-fiction comedy. The film has an outstanding cast and, obviously, a lot of money was spent on it, but don't even bother catching it on video. Wait for it to show up on TV. In spite of this, I've seen the movie several times, I'm fascinated by the art direction; the set design owes a lot to contemporary French fantastic art, of the Metal Hurlant/Moebius variety (Sorry, SDAI) but it has little else going for it.

One thing did occur to me, though. The over-the-top future world depicted in the film, the look and feel of the place, is so bizarre and so jarring (although obviously a satirical jab at current trends) that I imagined it is how our modern world must appear to very old people, raised in a differerent time. It evokes in me the same kind of confusion and even revulsion you might expect from someone who grew up in a totally different culture than the West, say something tribal or pre-industrial.

Perhaps this is how Europe or the USA might appear to people from some of the more remote or backward places of the third world, they would see us as a land of excess and turmoil, of moral and spiritual devastation. A movie's just a movie, and this one carries no deep meanings or social insight. But if you do ever get a chance to see it, keep these thoughts in mind. I wonder if the Islamic fundamentalists who travel to the West see us like this, and if this perhaps can explain some of the antipathy they feel towards our culture.