And without it, without love, without anger, without sorrow, breath is just a clock… ticking.

I remember watching Equilibrium when I was much much younger, and I ended up crushing on Christian Bale that time. He was really good and looking youthful then, haha! Well, it’s 2025 as I type this, and a lot of things happened from that time. Pretty sure by now that Hollywood isn’t the best industry to be in if you want to look fresh. Anyway, this movie deserves a second or even a third look if you’ve watched it prior to feeling the weight and reality of being an adult.

This is a futuristic post-apocalyptic themed film, depicting how humanity will be when all emotions are restricted, prohibited, and criminalized. Emotion– feeling is one vital ingredient of being a human being. Take it away, and you have a society that follows and believes in nothing but the movie’s father, who was also a human that dictates the law for everybody but himself. Any form of expression and art are taken as a ‘sense crime’ and you’d be living for a few days for ‘processing’ before you’re executed. Families are just a way for the community to propagate more stern citizens, losing rearing affection even between parents and children. Of course, they do have a cute dog character, because dogs are the very definition of adorable love. Good news, the dog survived, but the rest of the kennel had to be whimper-shot off the frame to evoke that John Wick effect… when the main guy is humanized by a cute dog. Very effective for people like me.

The movie foreshadowed a budding Orwellian society that sought censorship for every way they can be offended, from the difference of faith, difference in morals, real self-expression, personal preferences, and more. In the film, laws imposed are illogical and unreasonable, and people are treated as how you would treat laboratory animals, you’d have to make it to the cut to survive. Everything around are bare and black, white, or gray, which reminded me of the trend now of extreme minimalism and brutalist-modern designs. They even call it aesthetic these days– the lack of colors and details now sell even to the clueless youth or yuppies. Classical form of art are destroyed on sight because humanity subconsciously seeks it, and tends to awaken one’s emotions. This is what people in power dreaded. They knew that the masses are much more powerful when driven by emotions and the passion to break free from them the moment they start realizing what really is happening around them. The loss of loved ones in the name of false peace and constant fear for one’s life can push people to fight back. All people had to do was to open their minds and refuse the dose from Equilibrium, because once they start doing that, the mind and instinct knows where to find the truth. Truth is a view that you cannot unsee, and as it says, truth is like a lion– you just had to let it go to watch it defend itself. This is something I am continuously learning now. Lots and lots of truth to be unleashed. From stolen history, manipulated timeline, world conspiracies, flat earth, human abilities– all are now out there for us to find and learn from. As a student once said, two things that we live for is to know our true origin and our real destiny.