Things To Come Blu-ray Review
A slow start gives way to an epic film spanning hundreds of years. Wells dystopian vision of a future starts in 1940, where a war looms over the residents of Everytown, modelled to London. A brutal war is followed by a mysterious illness, walking disease that looks like a precursor to every Zombie film you’ve ever seen. The illness ravages the population till only half of them survive. Their attempts to rebuild their world are hampered by warlords who rule over England like medieval lords. All this changes when a man from the group ‘Wings Over the World’ arrive. These men have harnessed the ideals of science and plan to build a new future that is without war, focussing their scientific energies on society. They quickly build a utopian society that is devoid of illness, war and death. But human nature creeps in and this progress is damned by many. Their concern is with these constant advancements, they never have a chance to acclimatise to the world around them.
Wells wrote the screenplay in 1934 and whilst his predictions of a war in 1940 ravaging Europe came true, thankfully the rest of it was fiction. A startling accurate portrayal of human nature split between those always looking backwards or forwards, the frenetic pace of the film shows that humans are never satisfied with their lot. It’s in our nature to rebel against eachother, to pick sides and war, even when the war is against something as positive as progress. Everything about this film is pushing madly onwards into the future, struggling to get to a very poignant ending.
Very well articulated, this film belies its age and speaks intelligently to an audience. If I had to criticise I’d say that the soundtrack is extremely tinny and sometimes distracting. I’m not criticising the original score, but the recording on the blu-ray is less than perfect.
The newly released Blu-ray contains a commentary by Nick Cooper, which is incredibly detailed and worth listening to as much as a history lesson as anything else. In fact Things to Come transcends being an entertainment film and seems like a vehicle for HG Wells to impart all of his prophesies of the future and his ideas of how far humans could progress if we weren’t pouring all our technological advancements and money into war mongering. I wonder how disappointed Wells would be to see that 2036 is unlikely to look anywhere near as promising as he wanted it to be.
Maliha Basak