Dark Pondering - A Circle of Jerks?
Written By Casey Douglass
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| Circle film Image © Copyright FilmBuff |
I watched a film on
Netflix yesterday. It was called Circle and starred a fair few
people I recognised from other things, but could never tell you their
names without Google’s help. The setup of the film is that a group
of people regain consciousness while standing in a circle. I hope
that didn’t shock you, it did come at you from nowhere right? Long
story short, they have to vote to see who gets killed by a strange
energy beam next. I quite enjoyed the film, it was interesting to see
how people began to bicker and argue, especially when under stress.
There are some spoilerish things below so if you decide you want to
watch the film, you might like to do that first and read the rest of
this post another day. I try not to give everything away though.
It is interesting to
see how people try to judge the worth of another’s life. The people
in the film worked their way through many aspects of life: age,
career, marital status, the existence of family or not, skin colour,
sexual persuasion and religion to name but a few. On reading, that
certainly makes them sound like an utter bunch of wankers, but on the
other hand, how do you judge the worth of someone? It seems the only
rational answer is simply not to judge, that every life has worth.
That wouldn’t make much of a film I’m sure, and it rarely happens
in real life, which is very sad. The people in the film were put in a
situation that seemed to point them towards having to choose, but
even that didn't mean they had to vote for someone else’s death.
Some of the people
refuse to kill others by voting, and there are others who sacrifice
themselves instead. The assembled group also splits into factions
consisting of those who feel everyone is equal, and those who feel a
young girl and a pregnant woman had the most right to survive. There
is even an endgame in play but I won’t give away any more spoilers
here.
I think I clicked with
the film as worth is something I have always struggled to see in
myself. On the other hand, I know I am guilty of judging others just
as harshly at times too. I think it comes from the old habit of the
human mind, that of wanting to compare things: what we have and what
we don't have, what we do and what they do. Used sensibly, it can
give us information about how to right injustice, highlight areas of
our lives we need to work on, and things like that. Used wrongly, it
can inspire hate, greed, alienation and low self-esteem. One theme of
the film was the occasional agreement between some of the people, who
did agree that the uniting thing amongst them all was that everyone
wanted to live. The sad thing is that many felt that this justified
any behaviour that helped toward that end. You’ll be shocked to
hear that the concern for others’ well-being only extended so far
as the person expressing the concern was safe themselves, with the
odd exception.
We all need a strong
survival instinct. If we didn’t have it, the human race would
probably have died out millennia ago. On the other hand, humans need
more than survival, or what's the point? If we devolve into angry
primates when the chips are down, we are undoing any sense of
progress or advancement we might have achieved as we have evolved.
After all, if we take the big picture view, every person alive at
this moment in time has been a fantastic product of survival. Surely
that makes us all equally worthy to be alive right now? Our jobs,
hobbies, social circle or lack thereof don’t mean we have any less
right to be here. On the other hand, it is this same survival
instinct that means, in a 1-on-1 life or death situation with
another, we are quite naturally inclined to side with the
continuation of our own existence.
It’s certainly a tough one. I applaud Circle for giving people something to think about.
It’s certainly a tough one. I applaud Circle for giving people something to think about.
