THE FIFTH ELEMENT

The Fifth Element uses the future as an opportunity to create a wild and chaotic reality that is seemingly believable since it involves many of the elements from current time that are already familiar to us: fast food, taxi cabs, the overwhelming presence of media. A shift in reality is obvious however, by the obsession with verticality. There is vertical stratification of flying vehicular traffic; colossal buildings produce an extreme New York skyline, even the Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge exist high above the present day's river level. Robots, aliens, travel, architecture, technology and much more is used to take the viewer into a fantastical vision of the future, whilst leaving the viewer completely unaware of their existence in the theater in the present time.