 Based
on the Ray Bradbury novel of the same name set in a dystopian future
in which it is the fire brigade's job to burn banned books. One of the firemen
rebels and flees to the forests where he joins a group of dissidents whose set
task it is to preserve these banned books. (They seem to include almost all books
since a list of inoffensive classics such as Jane Eyre is among them.) They "preserve"
these books by each of them memorizing the complete text of a particular book.
In fact, they become that specific book as they forget their real names and [are]
instead called Moby Dick, Great Expectations, Crime and Punishment... the book
they have been assigned to memorize.
Weird, yes. And wonderful. Everything science fiction is on about. Thus it
should come as no surprise that this film was made in the 1960s by a French director
(Francois Truffaut). Hollywood just seems to lack the intellectual
capacity and moral integrity to make films like these...
Review by James O'Ehley from The
Sci-Fi Movie Page. |
