The Possibility of an Island (La Possibilite d’une ile)

Film Synopsis

The Possibility of an Island (La Possibilite d’une ile)
Director: Michel Houellebecq
Year: 2008
Country: France
Duration: 95 minutes
Print source: Celluloid Dreams
Web: www.celluloid-dreams.com


Controversial French novelist Houellebecq has written a string of cult books, included Atomised and Platform, which, with their images of casual sex and dissolute existences, have polarised readers and critics. They have been condemned as exercises in nihilism by some and praised by others for their understanding of contemporary socio-cultural disillusion. 

This cinematic adaptation of his novel The Possibility of an Island, controversially directed by the author, has similariy divided audiences. At the film’s Locarno screening, Houellebecq cancelled his press conference and caused a furore that led to a lambasting from some critics. Once the dust settled, however, other voices emerged comparing aspects of the film to everything from Kubrick’s 2001 to Tarkovsky’s Stalker. There is also a touch of the dislocated alienation articulated by Bowie’s Thomas Newton in The Man Who Fell To Earth. But none of these references fully describes this movie.

Set across numerous time periods The Possibility of an Island examines the familiar quasi-science fiction themes of Houellebecq’s books: our self-centred, youth and beauty fixated culture will, like those bodies we venerate, eventually stagnate and rot. The only way in which to guarantee prolonged existence in a Godless vortex is via the science of cloning. Locating its narrative in a crypto-religious scientific cult and the barren scarred landscape of Lanzarote, the film follows the lives of Daniel (Benoit Magimel, also seen in The Piano Player and La Haine) and, in the far distant future, his clone.  This is philosophical and speculative science fiction filmmaking as it should be and the kind of signature work that is all too rare in a genre that is often characterized by space opera. A unique and challenging film.

Screens with the short film Fugue