Before hope was instilled in a galaxy far, far away, George Lucas visited the future in 1971 with his feature-debut THX 1138.
Set sometime in the 21st century, the film offers a world where citizens live underground and are controlled by the use of mandatory drugs, altering their minds and suppressing their emotions. Sexual intercourse and the concept of family are prohibited - it’s a future where “love is the only crime”.
THX 1138, a loyal factory worker, and LUH 3417, a surveillance centre worker, find themselves developing sexual desires for one another when they secretly reduce their drug intake. They become sexually involved and, having broken the law, are both arrested and it is soon revealed that LUH is pregnant. With their fates sealed, THX is determined to escape - the only question is, can he?
Lucas creates a world, which like Star Wars, looks used but here it’s done in an abstract way; the future is clinical yet disturbingly threatening. It’s a world that Lucas would later describe as “being trapped in a case with the door unlocked, but being unwilling or afraid to open the door and go out.” The film is an allegory of the state of the world in the 1970s, an unbridled consumer culture that has lost connection with the natural world and is simply self-contained.
All our screenings are 18+
The film will begin at the advertised time above.
