Gattaca trailer - Idea of progress

First impressions or Ideas , themes

The dictatorship of performance, a society based on selection and the issue of man’s free will; the idea of progress going against humanity, depriving them of their selves, dividing people rather than uniting them.

(Some links can be made with our current society, such as, the choice of female or male foetuses in India or elsewhere through the use of Ultrasounds ( = echographies). )

2/ What determines people’s lives? How?

*It’s our constitution, that is our DNA which determines what we do later, who we marry. The parents choose the DNA of their children. There is a discrimination based on people’s DNA. The people inside are controlled all the time, from cradle to adult age.

**People’s lives are determined by their DNA, their genetic code, that is, if they have certain genetic characteristics, they are forced to have a specific type of career or rather, are limited to certain types of jobs, will have to marry certain individuals and not others.

3/ Why was there no interview (at about 1.20 of the trailer)?

*There was no interview because only his physical characteristics count, his bodily fluids which are analysed replace the interview.

**The cup of a sample of his bodily fluids (urine/ blood) IS the interview. The only criterion which counted for the choice/selection was the genes he is supposed to carry. He had already been selected as he is supposed to be one of the genetically-engineered people who ‘deserve’ certain categories of jobs/to whom a particular category of jobs is accessible unlike others.

4/ What kind of a society does it become?

*In the search for perfection, the society becomes a divided one with some people placed above the others.

**We see a dystopia where everything in everyone's lives is controlled. They are all submitted to live according to their their DNA which determines what they must do in life, who they must live with , etc. The rule of science covers all aspects of people’s lives, and has led to it becoming a divided society where humans are ordered in a hierarchical structure with the genetically-perfect humans occupying elite positions, and the naturally-conceived ones consigned to (relegated to) inferior positions/jobs.

5/What do you suppose the protagonist who is in hiding ( caché , en cavale) has done or wishes to do?

* He is an impostor, he takes on someone else’s identity in order to become part of the group.

**He tries to change his identity / or assume someone else's identity. He uses blood that he keeps in a refrigerator so that he can pass off as this other person. /When he cleans the computer , he erases all traces of his DNA so that he is not caught, as it is said, the human body sheds millions of cells very day. / The blood and other genetic material he uses ( he takes blood from the fridge) belong to another man who has offered him the possibility to take on his identity.

*The protagonist who is in hiding, is a young man who has been conceived naturally and is thus not part of those considered superior, yet he seems to have the ambitious aim of wanting to take the place of somebody who is superior to him despite the obvious risk of failure considering the constant checking which occurs in the place he is in.

6/ What is at stake in the film according to the catchphrase you see at the end?

*It’s all about free will, and the human spirit , ambition and feelings of people which cannot be modified or programmed by genetics.

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