What will it be, a world ruled by science or a world ruled by tyrants? Such is the too simplistic question posed by 1936's Things to Come, a visually splendid but philosophically daft science fiction film conceived by HG Wells and produced by Alexander Korda.
We begin with "Everytown", a place presumably meant to be a generic stand-in for any city in the world but is pretty obviously an English one. It's 1940, four years in the future from the film's release, and John Cabal (Raymond Massey) is worried about reports of impending war, despite recent assurances from authorities there will be none. To a British audience in 1936, that would've sounded awfully familiar.
And of course there is war. In one of the film's best scenes, a pilot from Everytown is shot down. Dying from his wounds, he sees a little girl approach as his allies above deploy gas. He gives his gas mask to the child, marvelling that he did so after he probably killed her parents, deliberately. It's a nice moment to show the senselessness of war.
The decades pass and endless war reduces Everytown to rubble and its people to a primitive tribe. A ruler emerges played by Ralph Richardson, who hams it up admirably. He lords it over the town in a furry vest and helmet, angrily demanding the deployment of aircraft despite the total absence of petrol to fuel them.
Now John Cabal returns, wearing futuristic tights and a calm demeanour. He talks about a new society of scientists ruled by reason. He's not worried when Richardson takes him hostage. Some time later, his allies arrive in force--a fleet of massive black bombers dropping "peace gas"--a gas that puts everyone to sleep instead of death.
Okay, a fair enough argument for science triumphing over infantile tribalism. Except as decades advance, Wells' vision of a society ruled by reason grows less acute. We see a marvellous future city sadly designed with ugly, featureless walls and balconies. We meet a sculptor, chipping away at a vaguely Native American figure, who complains of this new world where humans are trying to do things they weren't meant to, like going to space. Based on this vague argument, he somehow rouses millions of people to try to tear it all down. Meanwhile, on the other side, an old man tells his granddaughter how humans used to have foolish things called "windows" because they hadn't invented artificial sunlight yet. Mind you, that's not presented ironically. Wells evidently longed for a future in which fresh air and sunlight were not such disgusting necessities.
In obviously being inspired by the emerging tyrants of the 1930s, Wells fails to address the issues that actually made them popular. That they presented a vision of glory in contrast to a reality of poverty, something, ironically, Things to Come also does. So when the film concludes with Raymond Massey, playing the noble grandson of John Cabal, waxing triumphant on the glories of "progress" and "conquest" as the mob is massacred offscreen by concussion from the launching spacecraft, one is more astonished by the extremity of the film's tone deafness than by any of its astonishing special effects.
Things to Come is available on The Criterion Channel.
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