As if we were back into the Industrial Revolution, people exercise manual and repetitive works, which is at some point incoherent since we should be in the future. The atmosphere in Dayton, the Time Zone where Will Salas lives is also quite grey, without any sign of vegetation (picture 7). The filming of those could easily reminds of Metropolis, in the sense that people are gathering into factories in mass and are all walking towards the same direction (picture 6, 66). In Dayton, since all get the same revenues, almost everyone is working in factories (picture 5). Thus, living alone with his 25 years old mother, Will have no choice but to work at Dayton factory to enable both him and his mom to keep going. However, it is used several times throughout the movie with close-ups, as it is one of the most famous way of earning time. Indeed, Will Salas, the main protagonist is against this game in which people die very often, since his own dad passed away during one. No matter how paradoxical the situation is, people are playing arm wrestling to make ends meet (picture 4). If one wants to live and help his family doing so, he often has to steal time to have some. “Is it stealing if it is already stolen?”.This sentence, repeated several times during the movie, accurately defines the life on the poorer districts. Then, the model of “time as a currency” depicted in the movie have to be explored in order to submit a coherent conclusion.Ī) Living on the poor side of the spectrum In such extents, the question to be discussed in this essay would be to wonder how is the construction of the movie “In Time” enabling Andrew Niccol to draw a critic of capitalism? To sort out some elements of response, analyzing how the director managed to create his dystopia would first be interesting. This view of depicting society have been shared multiple times in the 21st century, especially in movies. The film has been realized to make us feel as if rich and poor were living in two different Worlds and as the middle class disappeared (never shown). Since an excessive lot of money is needed to pass from a zone to the other and that rich people don’t want to see their time stolen in poorer lands, social classes almost never meet. Thus, their environment is divided in 12 zones, which request large amounts of money to be reach through (picture 3).Īs in Hunger Games, the different areas are ranked in descending order, the twelfth one being the most destitute. At 25, they all stop aging and need to make time in order to survive.
(picture 1) This is materialized by a green counter all inhabitants of the society he imagined have on their left arm (picture 2).
People do their grocery shopping, take the public transport and live every action by paying with their time. In this particular movie, he decided to show a World in which time would have replaced money, more than a hundred years from now.
Attached to the issue of artificial realities, the New Zealander director produced In Timein 2011, nine years ago. Since its creation, loads of artists took part on denunciating how inhuman societies functioning on capitalist theories were.Īndrew Niccol is part of them as most of the movies he wrote and directed were dystopic criticisms of our capitalist society. What is often questioned about it are its supposed consequences on our future, since capitalism tends to have dreadful effects on inequalities and environment. According to the Oxford Dictionary, capitalism is “an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.” Often criticized by intellectuals, and especially by Marx, because accused of being immoral, this system is nowadays commonly used throughout the World.