Leeloo making her escape
Noni Ford reflects on her recent first watch of Luc Besson’s beloved cult sensation and its depiction of humanity amidst its familiar story of good versus evil.
Is this a comedy? Is this a grand space romance? Is this an epic about the fight for the survival of the human race? Is this a social commentary on culture, consumption, and the fragility of human planning? It’s all of it, and yes, that is a lot of story elements and characters to cover, but somehow it all works in The Fifth Element. In fact, I’d say because there are so many moving parts and overlapping interests and motivations, it makes the film that much more engaging. The dramatic irony lends itself to several comedic scenarios, and the world-building doesn’t require a vast exposition dump or repeated explanations throughout to keep up. Once the story begins, we’re on the ride and strapped in until the end. We’re given cursory titles for the people in power who sit in a control room trying to figure out a plan of attack for the mysterious life-destroying force that’s encroaching upon Earth. We don’t need to know their names, though, to know that they are ineffectively handling the situation and refusing to actually listen to the people who hold the answers. As someone who winced through at least half of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, director Luc Besson’s 2017 genre-bending space opera, it’s quite refreshing to see a previous science-fiction foray in his filmography that actually worked. Leaden with CGI, the heart of Valerian felt flat and absent of a compelling driver in the story; The Fifth Element by comparison was made in 1997 and so, while there are some visual effects, it doesn’t rely heavily on that and doesn’t need to because the story is gripping.
Maybe it’s my overexposure to cyberpunk films recently, but I think one area that the film intrigued me most was its vision of the future. The cars were flying, the medicine was advanced enough to generate a human from cells alone, and commercial space flights were available – all were a given for the time jump of 5,000 years. However, people are still people; there are those with tremendous wealth and those eking by doing customer-facing roles like taxi drivers still. Fast food chains are going steady. Entertainment has only further evolved to offer hours-long streams of content and the people du jour are made of everyone from royalty to fashion-focused, sparkling media personalities. That was clearly a strength of the film: with all the technological advancements, people were essentially the same, not more evolved, higher-conscious beings, and that was an easier way in for audiences to the story.
Digital Domain employee working on models for The Fifth Element
Most of my previous awareness of this film came from GIFs of Chris Tucker as the larger-than-life Ruby Rhod and Pop Culture Detective’s video essay on the “Born Sexy Yesterday” trope (which I think is a trope that should be discussed more). Both of these touch upon central characters in the movie, but neither of them focus on the main plot — saving the world from the entity Evil — so I was quite surprised that was where the story was leading. Although the action-adventure portion of the film does have a time-is-running-out stake to it, there isn’t a rush in the story and we’re given plenty of time to be immersed into the goings-on of this world.
While most characters connected to Korben Dallas, our hero, and Leeloo, our savior, know about the impending doom facing Earth, the population is living in complete ignorant bliss. The government works to remedy this threat from Evil, while our other human villain on Earth, Zorg (played with a little side of camp from Gary Oldman), attempts to aid Evil’s plans, only thinking of future profits after the destruction of life. More focused on an anticipated windfall, Zorg easily sells out humanity, not focusing on the fact that Evil is unlikely to leave enough humans on Earth to do business with after Earth is destroyed. Meanwhile, priest Vito Cornelius, who has been anticipating the return of Leeloo to Earth, humorously fumbles multiple attempts to save Earth and is brushed off by the world’s authority. Leeloo is trying to complete her mission to the best of her abilities, and Korben is at first just along for the ride until their chance encounter leads to further entanglements. The frequently thwarted plans of all are maddening to watch, as much as they are the oil that runs the machine of the film. All of the clashes and subterfuges are unexpected and give tension to the fight for humanity.
It crossed my mind more than once that maybe this level of ineptitude, greed, and pure egotism on display was a reason that Evil should win; it coalesced its power and put its plans into place. If not for Zorg’s own aligned plans falling through, Evil would have easily crushed humanity quite swiftly in the first act. You could say the only real flaw in Zorg’s plan was the human or other species’ involvements. While it is Zorg’s failings that prevent Evil from his undertaking it’s also this rigmarole of characters and goals that lead to enough confusion that he’s been given this window of time. Yet despite all of the near misses of fate and despite my darker sensibilities, I was rooting for the humans. We didn’t get to a point of negative perspective on Earth’s society where I was happy to see it finished off. I wanted to see Ruby’s next telecast, to see Korben’s taxi car on a regular day, and to see what else could be produced from future-tech microwaves. Just as much as you are exasperated, you also learn to see the beauty of the people and what each contributes to the final stages of their mission.
Leeloo, Vito Cornelius, and his apprentice in The Fifth Element
Not quite as hopeful as an alien-invasion-and-fight-for-humanity movie like Independence Day or as pessimistic as Don’t Look Back, The Fifth Element doesn’t fall too heavily on either side. Each film in turn tries to show why we want to save this place or what on Earth is worth saving, persevering, and protecting. Don’t Look Back as the more recent of the three is the bleakest reflecting the times, which maybe was one of the reasons my mind did go to the failure of the Earth being saved when the story was laid out for Element. I’m more used to seeing science fiction with a cynical edge to it, and there are fallible characters but not so fallible that I’m cheering for their demise. Even the scheming Zorg, though evil in a greedy way, is so entertaining that I wanted to see him weave back into the story after a few scenes of his absence. What screenwriters Besson and Robert Mark Kamen managed to do was to give us characters that ran the gamut of pure-hearted and rotten-to-the-core without compromising a richness to each person’s story.
Come to The Fifth Element to finally understand the GIFs of the iconic characters and stay for the heart.
IU Cinema will be showing The Fifth Element on June 26 as part of the Indie Auteurs series.