The Fifth Element is a science-fiction movie with a huge sense of humor, like Mars Attack before it. The French director, Luc Besson, has already made a lot of this kind of movie, which mix a lot of action, humor, and love (Taxi, Nikita, or Leon, in which the bad guy is also interpreted by Gary Oldman…). The Fifth Element is not an exception, and the scheme stays the same: beautiful girl in trouble, a common guy ready to fight in order to impress the girl and to save the world, a love story, and a great evil threatening the world (named The Great Evil).
The story takes place in 2263, in a city with no name, but we can suppose that this is New York, or a big American city. The skyscrapers are huge, and it is not possible to see the ground. Flying cars, cops wearing “Robocop’s” clothes, Besson gives us his vision of a non distance future, where old stuffs are everywhere with new technology. Except one or two things, the story of The Fifth Element can easily occur in our contemporary world, and the movie will become a simple action movie. Technology is showed in an impressive way, like in other sci-fi movie. But, the original thing is that Besson uses technology in a funny way : the flying taxi of Korben Dallas is an excuse to show Leeloo on the glass of the taxi because of the gravity and the fact that she has not a seat belt, the automatic shower is only used accidentally in order to show her wet and cold, the Zorg’s gun to show the Mangalores as perfect morons.
Old versus New
In all the story, old and new live together, and are shown together. The objects, first, and then the story, are reflecting this aspect.
Objects
In the entire movie, old objects can be seen in this futurist world. One of the most relevant is the telephone, which is use at the beginning and at the end of the movie. Moreover, in the bedroom on the cruise, the telephone is very old, and the room is just a typical one in a luxurious hostel.
The clothes are very important in the movie. Even if sometimes it is to show Leeloo in a sexy way, it is also to separate people from their skills: scientists are wearing blouses, the general army uniform, the priest a long brown priestly garb, etc.
In Korben’s apartment, the shower, even if it’s automatic, is a normal one. The coffee machine is the same as in 1990, such as the refrigerator. It’s only the design, with the yellow circles, that show us that we are in 2263.
Furthermore, there is a typical airport that works in the same way than in 1990, even the cockpit of the spacecraft is a plane cockpit. The cruise take place in a “boat”, on space I concede, but this I a classical cruise. The classic opera demonstrates that we are in 2263, seen from a 1990’s point of view.
Story
At the beginning of the movie, this aspect is shown by two key elements: the Aliens and the Priest. The two are collaborating together, and they are gathering around one thing, the Fifth Element. In fact, the entire movie is about the duality between old and new, even in the structure of the film. Indeed, the first part occurs in 1914, in the past, and the second part in 2263, in the future.
Moreover, there is a kind of a myth about the five elements. When the president discovers the story, it’s the priest Cornellius who teaches him the legend of the ultimate weapon, opening as old book with old draws. It’s presented as a myth, as the way eclipses were presented long ago for example.
Finally, I would like to say that the story itself is an element of this duality: saving the new world, with old technology. We can also add some references to religions, the perfection of Leeloo born from the hand of the fifth element and Eve born from a bone from Adam, the Great Evil and Satan, or even the love story between the brave man and the innocent woman, which can be considered now as a kind of an old cliché.
Recurrent figures
There are a lot of recurrent figures in sci-fi movies in The Fifth Element. First of all, the Big Boss of the company, Zorg, reminds us the boss in Metropolis and Blade Runner. However, Zorg is also the bad guy, which is a new thing compared to the two other movies.
Then, there is the “mad scientist”. Using a blue neon light, Besson is trying to show him in a disturbing way (see the picture), but he is not as mad as we are, but funny. One of recurrent thing we can notice with this scientist is the fact that this is the only time we see an entire new technology in action, when they are recreating the fifth element. Scientist and real new technology seem inseparable.
The perfection of technology is also something this movie is dealing with. Leeloo seems perfect, but she was “engineering” (I’m quoting the scientist), like the replicants in Blade Runner or Agent Smith in Matrix. The perfection of technology, because they never fell, is one aspect of science-fiction which is developed a lot. Sci-fi authors like to show the fall technology, showing that even if technology is suppose to be perfect, it is not and it can fail in its purpose: Leeloo refuses to create the ultimate light to stop the Great Evil as Hal refuses to obey Mickael in 2001, a space odyssey.
I could spend a lot of time explaining the recurrent figures in this movie, because one particular thing about The Fifth Element is the fact that Besson fixed all the possible Sci-Fi figures together in order to make his movie: Aliens, spacecrafts, religion, automatism, light speed (Star Wars), clothes, huge buildings (Metropolis), pyramids (Blade Runner), etc…
All these aspects show us what Besson wanted for this movie: a succession of sci-fi cliché that everyone can notice. But he uses them in one purpose: make us laugh. Indeed, it is the funny way he directed the technology (the voice in the cab, the barman in the airport for example) and the script related to technology (“Leeloo Dallas’ multipass”, “she’s perfect”, Ruby’s shows…) that transform this movie in a funny one more than a typical science fiction one.
For my part, I think this is the main reason that this movie was not so successful, especially in the United States. Because of this new funny vision of the entire technology (not only one robot in Forbidden Planet), it is difficult to identify yourself to one of the character in this universe we don’t believe in, compared to other realistic vision in sci-fi movie (Minority Report, 2001…). But it’s not the purpose of the film, showing us a funny colored and fashioned world. It ‘s was aspect that make it a particular movie, unique and entertaining.
