PIE IN THE SKY
The film Elysium has high satirical aspirations which do not quite satisfy; it nevertheless speaks intriguingly into Christian thinking about the world to come.

Neill Blomkamp is establishing a reputation in the film business as the purveyor of intelligent science fiction satire on the state of the world. The inventive District 9 looked at the treatment of aliens in a South African concentration camp and offered a fresh and compelling take on the system and legacy of apartheid. His new film, Elysium, has attracted wider attention, not least because Matt Damon and Jodie Foster act in it.
In the middle of the twenty-second century, the earth has been ravaged by greed, violence and contempt for nature. Those who live there work in harsh conditions for the benefit of an elite which lives in sheer opulence in a giant space station called Elysium where every human want is catered for and every medical problem is surmountable. The first wonder is that Hollywood sanctioned the film in the first place, for it could be taken as a none-too subtle metaphor for those who live in the mansions of Beverley Hills in relative proximity to the ganglands of South Central Los Angeles. In a society like Britain’s or America’s, where inequality is growing and producing ugly effects and a new super-rich minority is insulating itself from others, it projects a disturbing image of the future, yet there is a more pressing social reality. More than anything, the film speaks of the gated communities of the developed world and the desperate efforts of illegal immigrants to find a way through the railings.

 

The film, which is today’s dominant creative medium, endlessly portrays the future as a dystopian place where the earth is despoiled, people are not to be trusted and violence is always a breath away. With the digital revolution making more things possible, it is surprising that script writers perceive the future in such depressing terms. The liberal optimism of early TV science fiction like Star Trek seems hopelessly outdated now. Perhaps it is an unconscious reflection on the last great economic change which industrialised the west but led by the mid-twentieth century to the Holocaust and the nuclear bomb; somehow wonderful developments are always twisted by humanity. Then again, perhaps Hollywood just loves imagining dystopia with CGI toys at its disposal.

Though predicting a human future of grotesque inequality, the film unconsciously speaks into an eschatological debate of great importance and one which in the United States is bitter and divided.

The concept of Elysium is an indulgent Greek depiction of the afterlife and the film perhaps unintentionally posits a view of earth as hellish and heaven as the place you go to in the sky to escape from this world’s suffering. This kind of dualism has long afflicted Greek influenced Christianity, with its understanding of heaven as a parallel place we transfer to on death, freeing ourselves from the embodiment of earth. This should be distinguished from the more Jewish inspired Christianity which perceives our future in the new earth God will create in Christ. This may be a mystery that language and limited human thinking is inadequate to describe, but it has serious implications for how we view our discipleship.

 

If the earth is merely something to escape from, then we should put less effort into making it more comfortable to live in and place more stress on saving souls. If this is a world God has come to redeem in Christ, then every deed which expresses love and consideration for the welfare of others is a small landmark of the coming kingdom of God. We make our appeal to others to respond personally to the claims of Christ while seeking to shape this world in God’s character because he cares about it and will redeem all that he has made.

In the end, Blomkamp’s vision is one where the resources of heaven are made available to the suffering and despised people of earth, thus imagining the redemption of the material world. For producing such a sharp political satire in a demotic medium like his, Blomkamp is to be congratulated. There are, nonetheless, disappointments amid the popcorn and Coke cans. The excessive violence of the film detracts from its intelligent premise and the final ear-shattering combat between the good man and the bad man has become such a contrived, boring and debased staple of cinema that its shallowness distracts from the deeper message.